


Star Wars Episode X:Shroud of the Dark Side

by Ijustlikestarwars



Series: Star Wars Expanded Trilogy [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Lightsabers, Multi, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:59:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 25
Words: 31,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25827820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ijustlikestarwars/pseuds/Ijustlikestarwars
Summary: There has been peace in the Galaxy for a few years now. Things are looking up. Finn and Rey are Jedi Masters, Poe is in charge of the New Republic's army, and Ben Solo is free from the dark side even if he is still in hiding. Rey and Ben have even been able t get married and Rey is pregnant. However peace won't last forever. Gangs and cartels are rising throughout the galaxy because of the New Republic's slow rise. The dark side is returning to the galaxy through a mysterious force user, and a new alien race has entered the galaxy with dark intentions.....
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Star Wars Expanded Trilogy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2030782





	1. Ben Solo

There was war on the Flagship of the First Order. The Supreme Leader Kylo Ren had his unstable crossguard lightsaber in front of him. The girl Rey was on the floor, helpless and wounded. Her lightsaber was across the room and when she tried to call it to her he quickly slashed it in half before she could grab it. He walked at her, saber raised. She screamed for help but it was too late. Her head rolled across the floor as Ren quickly and swiftly decapitated her. Kylo Ren walked toward it and when he saw it his heart filled with regret. He looked at her stomach and noticed it was bigger than usual. She was pregnant. He killed her and her unborn children too. “No..” he whispered. “NO!!!!”  
Ben Solo woke up with a start. He was sweating heavily. He looked to his right, and let out a sigh of relief noticing that his wife Rey was still sleeping peacefully next to him. He slowly got up so as to not wake her up and moved to the living room. He was sick of this place. He had been stuck in his Uncle Luke’s old home in Tatooine, a planet on the outer rim for 2 years now. He was safe from the law there, since Ben Solo was presumed dead or missing by the entire Galaxy after his crimes he commited as Kylo Ren. Even then he was still a wanted man, just in case someone did see him. Everything that he had done for the past 2 years was in secrecy. He wasn’t allowed to help Rey and their friend Finn with the construction of the new Jedi Temple on Yavin 4, He wasn’t allowed to be there for Rey when she got an award for her service to the New Republic. That was a weird name for Ben, considering the Galaxy had already had a New Republic before this… That he and his First Order helped to destroy.   
But most upsettingly of all the wedding that Rey and him had was kept in secrecy and no one knew she was married. Everyone assumed that Rey and Finn had something together. When Rey found out she was pregnant last week those who know her think that the baby will be Finn’s. Ben was incredibly annoyed by this. Finn was a nice guy, nice enough to forgive him for wounding him quite badly about 3 or 4 years ago. But Rey was HIS wife, not Finn’s. Ben wasn’t the only one unhappy with this situation. General Poe Dameron also wasn’t happy that Ben was in hiding. Although he wanted Ben behind bars. Unlike Finn, Poe hadn’t forgiven him as easily. In fact, if Poe didn’t owe Finn a few favors Ben didn’t think that Poe would have kept this secret for them.   
Ben went over to a sand mound and using the force with his outstretched hand pulled a small brown pouch from deep beneath it. He looked to make sure that Rey was still sleeping before unwrapping it and pulling out the lightsaber of Kylo Ren. He sat at the table and examined it. It was an incredibly poor design, with a cracked crystal on the inside. He had toyed with the idea of trying to purify this crystal and continuing to use this saber on the secret missions he was allowed to go on. However the unstable and cracked crystal meant that there was a good chance of it blowing up in his face instead of working correctly. Plus this saber was used to slaughter many innocent people in the time of the First Order. He wrapped it back up and hid it back in the sand.   
Ben would continue to use his grandfather, Anakin Skywalker’s blue lightsaber. For a while he had Darth Vader’s but tossed it aside after the last confrontation with the revived Emperor Palpatine. He walked outside and looked at the rising Suns. It wasn’t a bad view but it was a bad planet. Tatooine was known for being a disgusting planet where criminals and nobodies came to. This made it the perfect place for someone who didn’t want to be found to hide. His heart sank watching the Suns come up because he knew as soon as it came up Rey would have to leave to go across the Galaxy back to training her students. Rey used to come back here every couple nights until a few padawans followed her to ask some questions about their training and almost noticed Ben. Since then Rey had decided to only come back to Tatooine a few times a week. Ben felt an arm go across his waist.   
“What are you doing up so early?” Rey asked him.   
“I couldn’t sleep. Plus last time I slept in you left without saying goodbye.” Ben Responded.   
Rey sighed. “I didn’t want to wake you. Could you not sleep because you were having nightmares again?” Ben didn’t respond. “Ben. It’s natural to have these nightmares. You were tormented for years under the boot of Snoke and Kylo Ren a-”   
“I was Kylo Ren. I did that. There wasn’t anyone forcing me to. I was tested by the dark side and I failed.” Ben interrupted. “I killed my father. I let my mother die. I led Luke Skywalker to his death. I killed innocent people and held the Galaxy hostage.”   
Rey took his hands. “You fell from the light. But you’re back. You’re with me. You’re doing things to help make up for your misdeeds. Helping me train the new Jedi to restore order to the galaxy is a GOOD thing to do. A good thing from a good person”   
Ben closed his eyes and sighed. “I need you. Can you come back later at any point this week before it’s over?”   
“I’ll try. Maybe I can try to pretend to have pregnancy problems or something and put Finn in charge.” Rey leaned onto Ben’s Chest. “I’m sorry you’re stuck here. Poe said he’s working through the laws to see if he can find a loophole for you.”   
Ben laughed, “Poe hates me. But with you and Finn helping me, I trust you’ll find something.” Rey kissed him “I have to go now. I’ll be back when I can. If we need any stealth missions on the outer rim, I’ll send you a message through the comlink.”   
Ben looked at her “Be safe.”   
“I will.” Rey smiled at him and grabbed her bag and lightsaber and left in her X-Wing.  
2 days went by with nothing for Ben to do. He meditated, practiced saberwork and wrote down tips for Rey and Finn’s students as well as Finn himself. Finn was doing great with the Lightsaber, partially from his training with the First Order before he left. However, Finn was having trouble focusing on the Force. Meditating was hard and Finn couldn’t focus enough yet to move things exactly where he wanted it to. Calling things to himself had worked great but when Finn and Ben went on a mission to stop drug smuggling and Finn needed to force push a bounty hunter away he accidentally threw the man off of a cliff and Ben had to grab him to save him. It almost blew his cover. Ben knew why he had to stay hidden, but he also knew that he needed to do something soon. Ben went over to Rey’s desk and pulled out all of the data she had on where the drug smuggling and human trafficking rings are. Finding one that he thought he could take alone he grabbed the Skywalker saber and took the spare resistance ship Rey had here from when her X-Wing was broken. Starting the ship he took off for the planet of Onderon to take on the Black Sun and the dangerous creatures they had there.


	2. Rey Solo

Rey sighed as she flew to Yavin 4. She hated that she had to leave Ben stuck in that old house on Tatooine. She wished he understood exactly why it was so important that he stays low. Though she got why he was so angry, it had been 2 years and they were no closer than they were back then to find a way for him to be safe in the Galaxy. What he said to her this morning wasn’t exactly wrong. Poe really did not like Ben. She had tried to explain to Poe how the darkside works and that Kylo Ren was a different person than Ben Solo and that Kylo Ren was just a corrupted Ben. Poe however had refused to listen and only saw him for the crimes he had committed as the second in command and later the Supreme Leader of the First Order. She didn’t blame Poe for how he felt but she still wished he would hide those feelings a little bit.   
When She arrived at the new Jedi Temple she walked up the steps and into the main hall. Rey couldn’t help but smile. It wasn’t much, there were only 4 masters being her, Finn, Alastor who had trained under Finn and Delilah who Rey had trained. She was very proud of Delilah who had been one of the easiest people to train and made Rey’s job of stepping into the role of Grandmaster of the new jedi order much easier. They had 6 Jedi Knights. Bruno, Colton, Harper, Piper, Stella and Zeke. There were about 4 or 5 padawans and Rey honestly didn’t know their names. Her and Finn didn’t have an apprentice right now and she had been so busy the past few months with the rise of drug cartels and human trafficking as well as working through helping Ben that she didn’t think it would be fair to take anyone on right now. She walked toward her office but before she could make it she was stopped by Finn.  
“I did some looking into these random bouts of trafficking coming up. I don’t think they’re random.” Finn said, clearly out of breath like he had ran to find her.  
“What do you mean not random? It makes a lot of sense for it to be random, the lack of a centralized government means that the rules that usually keep those types of people in bay didn’t exist…” Rey argued back, crossing her arms.  
“No no no listen. There has been this mark left at the last few places that we raided. Look at this and tell me if this looks familiar to you.” Finn's voice was starting to sound annoyed. He pulled up a datapad and showed her the mark. It was a black circle with a black spiky ring around it. At the top was a large black triangle that shoots outward. Rey looked at the mark for a second but couldn’t see anything from it. She looked at him blankly and shook her head.  
“I’ve got nothing. Is it a random First Order mark? Something from the Empire?” Rey Guessed.  
“It’s an old criminal syndicate marking. They’re called the Black Sun. They rose to power during the Clone Wars because the Jedi and Republic were more focused on the war. They had old bases on Mustafar and Ord Mantell, but from what I could find those bases are deserted. They actually formed a nice relationship with the government that the Empire ran. Focused a lot on human trafficking. I’m sure they died out after the Empire disappeared. It looks like they’ve used the gap in a reasonable government to form back up and get some smaller gangs in with them.”  
“Ok, well that's horrible, where is their new base? How can we stop them?” Rey asked, very alarmed at the possibility of a new power force. This is exactly how the First Order came up. The New Republic didn’t do anything about a massive military force and then couldn’t stop them when they took over. Rey would not allow this to happen again.  
“That’s the problem. I have no idea where the base is. It’s untrackable, anyone who has any information is either unwilling to give it up, or dead. But lucky for us I’ve found a lead. It’ll take us back to Tantooine, so I thought you could come with me and we’ll go surprise Ben.”  
Rey smiled at the thought of that. “Sure, we need to prepare just in case something goes wrong and I have some Padawan tests that I need to watch, when do you want to leave?”  
Finn paused. “Why don’t we keep it safe and leave in a few days. 2 days from now. That’ll give us time to get everything we need if this gets out of hand or we need to go somewhere else without coming back here.”  
“Good idea. I have somewhere here to be, Alastor said he thinks his apprentice is ready to take one of the tests for moving to knighthood.” Rey said, already moving away from Finn.  
“Ok, 2 days, don’t forget!” Finn basically yelled.  
Rey went through the rest of the day with everything going like a blur. The good news was that everything did go really smoothly. Alastor’s apprentice named Jackson, did a great job with his obstacle course. He wore a helmet that blinded him and he was sent through a course with a maze, gaps to leap over and some Marksman-H combat remote to test his reflexes against blaster bolts. She had a few meetings with some of the masters and knights about upcoming missions to find some more force sensitive people in the galaxy. If the new Jedi order was going to thrive and become an order of peace in the Galaxy they needed to be larger and stronger. The last day before leaving back to Tatooine went very fast, so fast in fact that Rey couldn’t even remember what happened. All she knew was she was going to see Ben tomorrow. It seems odd to her, to be married to the same man that she was fighting just a few years ago. They had fought on Starkiller base, where Kylo Ren had tried to get her to join him and in response she cut his face. Or when they fought on Crait and he managed to cut her leg open. Rey hadn’t let that wound heal and so it took over 3 years. Their last fight is what ended their feud. Kylo Ren turned back into Ben Solo and helped her beat the returned emperor Palpatine. After a long day, Rey went back to her quarter and fell asleep.  
“Hey, get up. It’s time to go, you ready?” Finn looked down at her.  
“I’m ready, I’m ready. Did you get everything we need?” Rey asked   
“Uh, yea I got everything we’ll need. Grab what you want to bring with and I’ll meet you by the Jedi starfighters we got. It would have been great to take the falcon, but Chewie still has it on Coruscant..” Finn rubbed his forehead and walked out of the room.  
Rey got up and packed some food, extra clothes just in case she needed it and grabbed her double bladed lightsaber. Running to meet Finn she boarded her ship and they took off for Tatooine.   
When they arrived at Mos Eisley Finn led the way to meet the correspondent. They went into a random sketchy bar and found a man at the bar. He was wearing all black and only had his piercing blue eyes showing. He didn’t say a word. Finn sat down next to him and the man slid him a datapad. He got up and ran out of the bar very quickly. Finn and Rey looked at each other confused.  
“What’s his problem?” Finn quietly asked Rey.   
“I have no idea… You said that everyone who knew where the Black Sun’s real base was located died. Probably just fear.” Rey responded.  
“You’re probably right. Damn it… this data pad tells us nothing new. It talks about the small base they have formed on Onderon. We already know the Black Suns have something there.” Finn scowled. “This was a waste of time”  
“Not necessarily. If it was so important that it was on this pad and someone felt we needed to know, then maybe it’s more than just a small base and we can get even more info if we take the base now.” Rey exclaimed excitedly  
“Good point. Let’s stop by and see Ben and then leave for Onderon. Do you want Ben to come with us?” Finn asked  
“Not this time. I know he’s itching to get out, but if this base is bigger than we thought it was there might be something or someone there that could expose him” Rey responded as they walked across the city to get a landspeeder to borrow. Finn drove and as they got closer to the old Skywalker home Rey’s excitement turned to fear. The extra ship she had there was gone. Rey jumped out of the ship and sprinted into the home. There was no sign of Ben, his lightsaber was gone and her desk was open with datapads everywhere. She had no idea where we went but one thing was certain. The number 1 most wanted man in the galaxy was gone and she had no idea where he was.


	3. Ben Solo

Ben dropped out of hyperspace and looked at the planet of Onderon. Because of the datapad he took from Rey’s desk he knows exactly where to land. To be safe he landed a bit away and snuck over to the landing pad. He hoped that some giant stupid creature didnt wreck his ship. He needed to get back before one of the three people who knew where he was noticed he was gone. Ben realized that he was going to need to scout out the area before he made any moves. Looking at the landing pad he saw 3 guards on the far left, 2 guards watching an entrance into the actual base, and 2 guards next to a ship on the right. As he was thinking of an attack plan the door opened and two men walked through it. Calling one of them a man was a stretch. It was an alien species that he didn’t recognize. The creature towered over the man next to him, and had an ugly scar across its face from ear to ear. It had a huge black mane of hair and a large cape flowing behind him. It had white skin and an almost skull looking face, with nasty claws and bone like hands. It wore thick black armor. When it spoke it spoke almost with just clicks and snarls. The man next to the creature seemed to understand, at least a little bit. The man next to him was a handsome man. He wore a nice black robe and black gloves. His whole attire was black. His face was white and almost looked waxy. His hair was brown and slicked back.   
What frozen Ben to where he was, was that the man had the unmistakable yellow sith eyes. He was twirling something in his hand but from this distance Ben couldn’t see what it was. He figured that they wouldn’t be too hard to deal with, probably just some buyers. He figured he would go left to right dealing with the guards that were almost completely hidden with cargo boxes. As he started to pull out his lightsaber he stopped. The man had gotten close enough to where Ben was hiding for him to notice that the thing twirling in the man’s hand was a lightsaber. He wasn’t playing with it, He was threatening the guards with it. Ben slipped closer to try and hear what the guards were saying.   
“...but I expect the full delivery next time. If there are more issues, you and I will have… complications.” The man's voice was icy cold. The head guard walked up to him trembling,  
“Lord Caedus, I’m sorry for the inconvenience. But you must understand that we have more customers than just you. There are many people looking to get into the business of trafficking, especially human trafficking. We only have a cer-” and before he could finish the creature with Caedus whipped out his staff and the man, and like a serpent it started to coil around the guards neck and bite into him. The guard turned a dark green and hit the floor. Caedus looked down at the guard almost bored.  
“Tsavong, where are your manners? Dispose of the body as to not disrupt their business. Remember, they’re too busy for us right now.” Caedus sighed sarcastically. He used the force to push the man’s body off of the landing pad and then boarded the ship. Tsavong followed him quietly and they took off with their packages.   
Now that they were gone, Ben was sure that he could take the guards outside and maybe even storm the base inside, if that head guard was the worst thing that they had here. He slipped to the right since he already came over here and they were down a man. He walked behind the man and waved his hand, knocking the guard out. Ben dragged his body behind the remaining cargo crates that Caedus didn’t take with him. This was the hard part. There was no getting around getting seen by one of the two guards at the entrance and there wasn’t enough cover to get those two guards without having the other 3 guards noticing him either. Unless he killed them. Ben hesitated. It had been 2 years since he had killed anyone, and he was afraid that starting back up would start pulling him back to the dark. Rey wouldn’t be happy if she had found out he had killed anyone again.   
“But if all goes well then Rey won’t even know that this happened…” Ben thought to himself. “Screw it, I need to get this done.” Using the force Ben choked the two men at the entrance until they hit the floor. He pulled out his lightsaber and when the last guards came to see what happened he quickly decapitated one, stabbed the second one and cut the third guards stomach open. So no one would find the bodies he used the force and pushed them off of the landing pad. If an uneducated person found them now, they would probably assume there had been a vicious animal attack and all the guards died. Just as he went to open the door a huge explosion knocked him back and he slid across the landing pad, having the wind knocked out of him. About 20 men came bursting through the entrance with guns on Ben. These were not random smugglers. They were trained killers. They all had armor on with jetpacks strapped to their backs. All of them were either armed with a powerful looking blaster or a huge sword.   
“Hands in the air!” The one in front shouted at him. “Now!” Ben listened not wanting to be killed on spot by the psychos.   
“Take his saber. It’ll go nice with the one we already have.” The man sneered at Ben. Taking his mask off revealed an older guy underneath, bald with many scars.   
“How dare you come to our base. If this was the main base, you’d already have your head cut off. We are the Black Sun. A revival of the once great crime syndicate from many years ago. It’s time people learn to listen. We WILL take control of the galaxy. Men like that Caedus and uh.. Chew bong, uh log guy or whatever are not a threat to us.”   
Ben couldn’t help but laugh. “That was the most ridiculous speech I have ever heard. Was that as threatening as you can get? Also Black Sun? All those guys are dead, you’re nothing but a phoney ripoff. What a joke.”  
The bald man leaned down to get face to face with Ben. “You’re dead. Bring him inside. We’ll take care of him the official way.” Before they could take Ben inside there was fighter blasts hit the pad and everyone went flying.  
Ben was getting sick of flying through the air.  
The ship landed and Finn jumped out.  
“Ben, you ok?” Finn asked, grabbing Ben’s arm and holding him up.   
“Yea..” Ben groaned, “I think I’m fine. My ship is down a bit aways from the landing pad.”   
“There isn’t enough time, jump in the back of my fighter, they might come back.” Finn warned. Ben didn’t have enough energy to agree so he just used the force to grab his lightsaber from the ground after it went flying and went with Finn. The back of the Jedi starfighter was not comfortable but it wasn’t a long trip back to Tatooine. The worst part wasn’t getting attacked or losing the fight. No the worst part was yet to come, Rey was waiting for them back on Tatooine, and she was about as unhappy as someone could be.   
“What the hell is wrong with you?! You could have been killed, you could have been found out who you were?” Rey shouted at him once they were inside. “You risked your life for something stupid, to either prove a point or get some action or something stupid like that!”   
“I’m sorry I-” Rey cut him off “What if something happened to you? How would I do any of this without your help? How would your future child feel about not having a father? You can’t do this Ben, you can’t just leave like this, you scared me, How was I supposed to know where you went?” She left him a pause long enough to where Ben assumed she was actually waiting for an answer from him.  
“Wait, how did you find me?” Ben asked.  
“The only datapad you took was the one that led to Onderon. Convenient that was where we were going to go, but now we can’t do that mission because you’ve ruined our cover.” Rey snapped  
“What’s the big deal, it was supposed to be a small base. I didn’t know what the hell was going to happen there! I’m basically stuck here anyway how does me getting captured or dying affect you in the long run!” Ben yelled back at her. He was frustrated with being stuck on this stupid planet and this stupid house.   
“Because I didn’t grow up with parents so forgive me for wanting my children to know theirs!” Rey snapped at him before storming out of the room. Ben felt like a real ass. He knew that Rey’s parents were a sore spot for her but he didn’t think about how that would affect their children. In fact Ben realized that he hadn’t thought much about what would happen after the child was born. Finn looked at him sadly. “Look man, I want to get out there and do some good. When I left the First Order and after we took down Starkiller base, that’s all I wanted to do. I just wanted to get out there and do some stuff. But. Please. Just try and take it easy for a bit.”   
Ben looked at Finn surprised. That was the most that Finn had said to him and seemed like he actually cared about Ben.   
“Uh, thanks. You’re right. I’m sorry.” Ben apologized.  
“It’s good. I’m gonna go back to the temple and give you guys sometime to sort this out.” Finn stood up and started to leave.  
“Finn. I really am sorry. Like for all of it. I’m sorry.” Ben looked at the floor not wanting to let Finn see how close he was to losing it.   
“We’re good. I promise I’ll do everything that I can to help you get out of here.” Finn smiled at him and then left.  
Ben stood in the bedroom for a bit and then walked out to meet Rey who was sitting at the table looking down.   
“I’m sorry. I promise I’ll stay here for you.” Ben apologized and took her hands.   
“Please. I can’t lose you. I’ve lost too much already. I’m worried about doing all of this and having a child. What if something happens to me and it affects them?” Rey said, almost worrying out loud.  
“I’ll figure something out. I could start to make a baby room while I’m stuck here. Clean up the place a bit and make it less. Tatooine.” Ben said, smiling at her.  
Rey laughed. “Sounds good. I’ll come back for you soon. I promise. I’ll let you know if anything comes to light with the Black Sun or getting you back into the public safely.”  
“Wait, now that you mention that, I have something I need to tell you.” Ben told her all about the Lord Caedus and Tsavong creature and how Lord Caedus is clearly some kind of dark jedi. Rey Frowned, and sat there thinking for a while.  
“I’ve never heard of anything looking like that or anyone named Caedus. I’ll keep it noted and have everyone know to keep their eyes out.” She got up from the table and walked toward the entrance. “I should go back.”  
Ben sighed, “I know. I’ll meditate about it and see if I can try and get in touch with Anakin or Luke. Maybe they know something that can help.”   
“Good idea. You have the com link, let me know if you find something out.” Rey gave him one more hug and kiss and then jumped into her starfighter and left.  
Ben watched her leave and then walked back into the house. He went to the bedroom and sat on the floor. He closed his eyes and tried to become more intune with the force. He called out to his grandfather and uncle and hoped that one of them would answer him. No one had answered him in a long time and Ben was wondering if the light side had abandoned him for his crimes. After what seemed like hours of waiting, he heard a voice.  
“Ben. Something is coming. Something even the Jedi might not be able to beat. Open your eyes and listen to me. I might be able to help you.”  
Ben opened his eyes and saw the force ghost of Anakin Skywalker standing in the doorway.


	4. Rey Solo

Rey stared at a wall in her office. Her mind was running at a million miles per hour. There was a lot to unpack from the past day alone. Her suspicions of the Black Sun group being more than her and Finn thought was true, and on top of that there might be a new dark Jedi running around with an unknown alien species. That was the most frustrating part. She had spent hours looking through different alien species using the description that Ben gave her and found nothing. While Rey was at that she also looked up anyone with the name Caedus and couldn’t find anyone with that name either. She did find out that Caedus meant slaughter. If Caedus was a dark Jedi or some sort of sith, it would make sense for him to have taken on this name instead of being born with it. Similar to Anakin Skywalker taking the name Darth Vader, or Ben Solo taking the name Kylo Ren. But that was all of the information she could find. Maybe with more information she could have found something better, like if she knew his real name. Until then she would keep up fight drug smuggling and human trafficking. If Caedus was there for people, maybe she would run into him somewhere else. She was lost in thought as Alastor and Finn walked in to see her.  
“Grand master.” Alastor bowed to Rey. “There is a rumor that the Black Sun is having an important meeting on the planet of Dathomir. Being that the planet is known for once housing the nightsisters and being filled with the dark side of the force I wondered if we might find your new friend there.”  
Finn nodded and leaned on her desk.  
“On top of that the new republic requires your presence soon. They want you to meet with the new chancellor, I believe her name is Marie, and I think that Poe will be there too. The new chancellor is excited to meet you so I wouldn’t keep her waiting. Maybe you can get some information out of her.” Finn informed her, handing her an invitation to the chancellor’s private quarters. “You’re going to need this to get in.”  
“Thanks Finn. I’ll leave right now. Alastor, can you and Finn go see what’s going on on Dathomir? Take Jackson with you. If he does well enough we can have his Knighting ceremony soon.” Rey asked as she packed some things up to leave.  
Alastor smiled at her. “Sure, sounds good. Finn do you need a minute or are you ready?”  
Finn looked at Rey like he had something to say but responded quickly “Uh, no. I mean yea, let’s go.” They both left her office to leave. Rey followed shortly behind them, only taking her lightsaber and the invitation with her. She decided that she would take her starfighter that the Republic was nice enough to make for them instead of Luke’s old X-Wing. Showing off that the Jedi were making nice use of the Republic’s money might be a nice way to woo the new Chancellor to give her some information. Plus that X-Wing was years of age. It might need to be retired soon, maybe put in the small museum she was building here with old jedi artifacts. Right now all that was there was some training droids, and Luke and Leia’s lightsabers. While Rey flew she wondered about how odd it was that it took 2 years to find a new leader. She guessed it was better safe than sorry, considering twice now the republic had fallen to an evil force. It was probably to make sure that the new government was ruled fairly and equally and didn’t have all of the corruption accusations like the last 2 did. When she arrived on Coruscant she noticed how beautiful everything was. She had only been here a few times and was still blown away by the senate building. Walking into the building she was escorted by a guard after showing her invitation. The chancellor quarters were huge. Marie sat at a huge table with Poe to her right. She smiled and waved Rey to sit down across from them.  
“Please Rey, take a seat. We have much to discuss. Poe has told me a lot about you.”  
“Uh, thanks. Wait, I'm sorry much to discuss?” Rey asked, confused. “What has Poe told you?” She gave Poe a nervous look. Poe didn’t say anything. He looked at his hands nervously.   
This did not help Rey’s anxiety about this meeting.  
“I have a few questions for you. The first is about the escaped war criminal Kylo Ren. I did some digging with some of the First Order officers we had in jail and for a shorter sentence they told me that his real name is Ben Solo. Some of them even told me that you might know where he is. You see, there is a rumor that he’s dead. I don’t think so. The strongest force used around doesn’t just die. I think he fled after the First Order fell on Coruscant. So I just have one question. Where is he?” Marie leaned forward and stared intensely at Rey.  
“Uh Chancellor, I already told you I don’t think Rey knows where he is. We talked about moving the search into the inner rim.” Poe interrupted before Rey could answer. “I want to find him as much as you do. I hate the guy. He needs to be brought to justice.” Poe said the last part looking Rey dead in the eyes.  
“No. I don’t know where he is. I’m sorry I can’t help more. Rey responded sternly.  
Marie smiled warmly at her “That’s ok. If you hear anything please let me know. On a different note, I heard you are trying to find more students. I can spare some troops to come with you and help if you would like.”  
“Um, that would be great. Thank you. Did you need anything else?” Rey stuttered out.  
Marie opened her mouth like she was going to say something and then closed it.  
“No. No, nothing more.”  
Rey stood up to leave and then froze. “Oh, I have one question.” Rey described Caedus and the strange alien species. Marie’s face turned white at the description of the Alien.  
“No. Nothing. I will let you know if we find anything.” Marie forced a smile. “You two may leave.”  
Rey stood up and walked out of the room. She was so confused about Marie’s reaction. Something was going on. She needed to find out what. Rey decided to contact Finn and Alastor and try to catch up with them on Dathomir if they were still there. Before she could make it out of the building Poe caught up to her.  
“Rey, stop. Listen, I promise I didn’t rat Ben out. I wanted to. But I wouldn’t do that. For you and Finn. Something’s off about Marie.” Poe said breathlessly  
Rey looked at him alarmed. “Like she’s corrupt? Already?”  
Poe shook his head “No. I think she’s hiding something. She knows something about that alien you were talking about. I don’t know what. Ask Ben if he can speak to the ghost guy thing. Blue Luke.. Or whatever you said. I gotta go. Following the rules to a T is getting annoying. I can’t do any of the cool crap I used to.” Poe sighed. “It’s for the better of the army. I need to do this” He nodded and then walked off.   
Rey got to her starship and tried to communicate with Alastor and Finn but couldn’t get in contact with either of them. Starting to get concerned Rey decided to go to their last coordinates and see what was going on. She took off and went into hyperspeed.


	5. Ben Solo

Ben stood and walked toward the ghost of his grandfather. He sat down on the edge of the bed and just stared. For a few minutes neither of them said anything else. Ben looked at the ground and whispered “I thought you all had abandoned me.”   
Anakin walked over and sat down by him. “We never left. Even when you left us. We were always waiting for you.”   
“Why haven’t you answered me? I’ve been calling to you all for years.” Ben asked defensively.  
“We can’t just appear because you want us to. There needs to be a reason for us to come see you. But there is a reason. I have to warn you.” Anakin stopped and hesitated.   
“Is something wrong? What’s coming? Does this have to do with the Lord Caedus and that weird alien?” Ben didn’t care that he was firing off so many questions, he had to know what was going on.   
“Yes, I don’t fully know, Yes and Yes. The alien species you are looking for is called the Yuuzhan Vong. That’s all I know about them. They come from outside of this Galaxy. I found the name in my time in the Jedi Order on Coruscant. As for Caedus, Luke tells me you can find information on him in the old Jedi academy he used to run.”  
Ben frowned. “So the old Jedi temple you were in, and the old Jedi academy I was in.” He thought hard about this for a minute. Luke’s old academy wouldn’t be hard to get into. It was on a more unknown planet and as far as Ben knew hadn’t had anyone move in since he helped burn it down. However the temple on Coruscant would be impossible for him to get into. Rey and Finn would have to look through that one.   
Anakin looked at Ben sadly. “I’m sorry Ben. My failures as a Jedi are what led you down your path. Just know that we were always looking out for you. I’m sorry we couldn’t do more. You are the key to stopping the Yuuzhan Vong from taking over this galaxy. You must find a way to come out to the public. It is the only way. You can’t win this war in the shadows.”  
“How can I? It isn’t safe yet. I know I need to but I don’t know how. I don’t think anyone is anywhere close enough to helping me either.” Ben sighed. He knew his grandfather was right, but finding a way to come out of the shadows to the public was not an easy task.  
“Is…. Is my mother ok?” Ben hesitated before asking.  
Anakin smiled at him. “Yes. Watching over you, and happy to do so. Happy with your choices in the last two years.”   
Ben relaxed a little knowing that Leia and forgiven him for what he had done. Like killing his father. He needed to hear this. Ben has done a lot of bad in his life, and in the past few years he has tried to do good to make up for it but recently he’s felt like nothing but a failure.  
“I have to go. Ben, I’m sure we will speak again soon.” Anakin smiled as he faded away.  
Ben stood up and spent a few hours pacing. He decided to try and contact Rey about what was going on and try to see if she could check on the old temple of Coruscant, and if the airspace was clear enough for him to speed off to his old academy. He found the comlink and tried to contact Rey. She didn’t answer him so he tried to contact Finn. Still he heard nothing from them. Starting to get worried Ben tried Rey one more time and still, she didn’t answer him. For now he was going to do nothing. Last time he tried to do something it made everything worse. He would take Rey’s advice and stay put. Still, he couldn’t just sit there. Sitting by himself stuck in his house was madness. Ben went and pulled out the Kylo Ren lightsaber. It was time to see if he could purify it. Opening the hatch he pulled out the cracked red crystal. Placing it in his palm he closed his fist and sat down with it. Closing his eyes he felt like he was being sucked into the crystal.   
Opening his eyes back up, Ben was in a red misty field. In his hand was his original blue lightsaber. The one he would eventually turn into the crossguard. Igniting it, he was shocked to see a white blade instead of a blue one. Looking up, a figure had formed in front of him. It was Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren pulled out his lightsaber and ignited it. Charging at Ben he had no mercy. Ben doged and swung at the fake. Kylo blocked him and then used the force to send Ben flying. He took off his mask and Ben saw what he would have been had he stayed Kylo Ren. Kylo was thin, had yellow eyes, waxy white skin. He had dark shadows under his eyes. Kylo looked at him and smiled.  
“You’re nothing without me. I am you. I’m a better you.” Kylo sneered.  
Ben shook his head. “No. I’m stronger without you. I’m stronger with the light. I’m stronger with Rey.”  
Kylo Ren laughed at him. “No. you’re weaker with her. Weaker with the light. Snoke gave you everything. I gave you everything. You abandoned your destiny.”  
Ben was starting to get angry. He started to walk back towards Kylo and then stopped. This is what he wanted. Kylo was trying to pull him back toward the dark.   
“This is what you want. I won’t let you. If you want me, come to me.”  
Kylo Ren sneered at him and charged. He was brutal with his attacks, but Ben was good at defense. He realized real quick that Kylo Ren hadn’t changed styles, this was exactly how he had attacked. Ben realizing this, quickly started on the counteroffensive, Kylo Ren’s smile quickly disappeared. Ben overwhelmed and disarmed him, he kicked Kylo onto the floor.   
“Do it. Kill me. You know that you want to. You know that you NEED to.” Kylo taunted him.  
Ben paused for a second. “No. If I kill you I win. We’re done here.” Ben turned off his lightsaber and walked away. Ben felt warm and happy. Smiling he walked into a bright light. Ben woke up with a start. He was lying on the floor, and the crystal was across the room. Except something was different with it. It wasn’t red, or cracked. The crystal was a nice white and seemed to have fixed itself. Ben walked across the room and picked it up. He put the Kyber crystal back into the lightsaber and tried to ignite it.  
That was a poor choice.  
The crossguard lightsaber couldn’t handle the fixed crystal and exploded in his hand. Ben went across the room and hit the wall. Stumbling up and walked to the bathroom and looked into the mirror. His right hand was burned and his face was cut up in a few places. He was bleeding from the old scar across his eye. Swearing under his breath, Ben grabbed some bandaids and wet clothes and cleaned up his face and hand. Ben froze realizing that his crystal he just purified might have just broken again. He ran back to the room and grabbed the Lightsaber. It was surprisingly still intact. The top was smoking and busted. But the bottom was still ok. He quickly opened the hatch and pulled out the lightsaber. It was smoking but was fine. He took a deep breath and slumped to the floor. It was a long day. Ben was tired of the random crap. He crawled into the bed and fell asleep.


	6. Rey Solo

Rey shot out of hyperspace and looked at the planet of Dathomir. The problem was that she had no idea where Finn and Alastor had landed. Taking a deep breath she closed her eyes and searched through the force. Rey felt Finn’s presence got a general sense of where they were and flew down and landed. She stepped out of the starfighter and removed her lightsaber from the holster on her back. Rey must have gotten really lucky, because just a few meters away from her were Finn and Alastor’s Jedi starfighters. The whole planet smelled like rotting animals, there was a gross red fog on the whole planet, and everything looked dead. Rey knew that the force would help guide her but for some reason she could barely feel the light. Trying to reach out to the force led to a dark and cold feeling. Rey remembered what she had learned about this planet. It was full of the darkside. This is where the nightsisters had lived and the sith, Darth Maul was born and raised. Rey had learned about his vicious reign of terror from texts and video logs she had found across the galaxy. After Obi-Wan Kenobi had cut him in half, he had held on to life using his hatred, used his brother to get new legs and ruled the planet of Mandalore with his own crime syndicate. That did not give Rey much hope about being on the planet and finding Finn and Alastor without a fight. She looked up to the mountain a ways ahead of her and decided that the mountain might be her best chance of finding the Black Sun and Finn.  
After a bit of walking Rey realized that she was being followed. She spun around and ignited her lightsaber. Everything was quiet. The only thing that Rey could hear was the hum of her lightsaber blades. She looked into the forest and couldn’t see anything. Starting to think that the dark side was playing tricks on her she slowly turned about and started walking again, but kept her lightsaber on. Rey must have walked for another hour before getting out of the forest. As she walked through the field, she noticed that the mountain was getting a lot closer and she was getting a lot more tired. The dark force from the planet must have been sapping her energy. It would be a perfect area for a dark side user to get stronger. Getting to the mountain she noticed a few guards at an entrance to a cave, and a flag above the cave that had the same mark that Finn had shown her for the Black Sun. That must be where the meeting was happening, and if something had happened to Finn and Alastor, they would probably be there. Rey thought for a minute on how she was going to get in and decided the best option was to try using some Jedi mind tricks. She deactivated her lightsaber and walked up to the guards very casually.  
“Stop. Who are you and why are you here? This is a closed meeting.” Guard #1 questioned her.  
Rey focused and waved her hand nonchalantly “I’m supposed to be here. You’ll let me in, it’s ok.”  
Both guards looked like they had fallen into a trance and at the same time said “You’re supposed to be here. We’ll let you in, it’s ok.” Rey walked past them and couldn’t resist a grin. That trick was easy, but never got old. Once inside, things were going to get a lot more complicated though. She couldn’t trick everyone inside. She decided that the best option was to sneak around and see if she could find Finn and Alastor. Creeping around wasn’t that hard, these people were not very smart, and it was dark which meant she had good cover. Eventually Rey entered a large room that had a table in the middle with 6 men at it. None of them fit the description of Caedus that Ben had given her. But there were several other ways to go from this room, so for now she decided to ignore the men and snuck through a few of them. Most of the rooms held nothing, but eventually she found where Finn and Alastor were being held. Alastor did not look like he was in good shape, and Finn had a black eye. Their lightsabers were sitting on a table across the room. They were both chained to the wall. A taller man was talking to them but Rey wasn’t going to be able to get close enough to hear what he was saying without being seen. She realized that she was going to be able to knock him out without anyone noticing, he was the only one in the room and he didn’t look like he could fight. The man looked more like a political business man instead of a fighter. Not wanting to kill him she used the force and pulled him to her, and then before he could make a sound knocked him out with the hilt of her lightsaber. Rey dumped him into a box and grabbed her friend’s lightsabers. Undoing their chains, she checked on both of them. Alastor was very unconscious and looked like he had already lost a lot of blood. Finn groaned and rolled over. “He’s here Rey…. Caedus. He did this.”  
“Finn, are you ok? Where is he? What happened?” Rey quickly asked , knowing they didn’t have a lot of time. They needed to get out of here if that was true.  
“He ambushed us in the forest. Cut off Alastor’s hand with his lightsaber and then used the force to throw us around… I got knocked out on a tree and then I don’t know what happened.” Finn said as he stumbled onto his feet. He grabbed his lightsaber and picked up Alastor. Finn was right, Rey noticed his right hand was missing. They needed to get him back to the temple to get some medical help. Rey thought quickly and then came up with a short plan.  
“I’ll run out to the main room and distract the people at the table. While I’m throwing them around, you need to take your lightsaber and do what you can to get out of here. I'll meet you at the base of the mountain and we can get out of here and back to the temple.”  
Finn nodded and Rey ran out of the room and immediately flung all 6 people at the table in the air. She started to sort of juggle them around while they screamed in confusion and anger. Rey had to try really hard not to laugh because even though the whole situation wasn’t great, this definitely was very funny to watch. Once she thought that she had given Finn enough time, she ran. At the entrance to the cave, Finn had already knocked both of the guards out, so getting down the mountain wasn’t hard. They half carried half dragged Alastor to the ships and then set him down by his ship. Rey used a force healing technique she had learned from Ben and gave Alastor enough energy to sit up. She fell back exhausted from doing that and they all sat there taking deep breaths.   
“I thought I’d find you back here. I was watching you earlier.”  
Finn and Rey shot up and ignited their lightsabers as Caedus walked through the bushes and stood by them, his hands behind his back. Ben was right on with the description of him. It was odd. He might have been a handsome man if it wasn’t for the damage that the dark side had done to him. He was beautiful in an ugly and evil sort of way.   
“Finn and Alastor, go back to the temple.” Rey ordered.  
“But-” Finn started to argue with her but was cut off quickly.  
“Now!” Rey yelled it this time.   
Finn and Alastor hesitated before climbing into their ships and leaving. Caedus watched all of this calmly and then took a step forward after they had left.  
“I’m not here to fight you Mrs.Solo. I’m here to talk.” Caedus addressed her calmly. His voice was ice cold but also had a nice warm lull to it.  
“Why are you here? Why did you attack my friends and how do you know who I am?” Rey demanded.  
He smiled. “I’m here because I’m working with the new Black Sun, as I’m sure you’ve figured out. I attacked your friends because they got in my way, and I know who you are because I’m familiar with you husband. You see, before I was Caedus and he was Kylo Ren we knew each other. Oh yes, I can see the shock on your face. Ben probably hasn’t mentioned me because he believes me to be dead, and I looked very different than when he saw me on Onderon. I noticed him sneaking around. But he was of no trouble to me.” Caedus sat down on a rock and looked at Rey, waiting for a response.   
Rey slowly put her lightsaber away and looked at him for a bit. “So… were you a part of Luke’s old academy?”  
Caedus nodded. “Yes. I was there when your husband attacked the temple. Shocking how much damage one apprentice can do. You can find more information either from your husband, or the old Jedi academy. I must go, but Rey. If you ever cross me again. I will fight back.” He gave her an evil smile and then disappeared into the trees.   
Rey was confused about the whole conversation, but knew she needed to go back to check on her friends. She hopped back into the starfighter and flew back to the temple. After checking on Alastor who was being fitted with a new hand, Finn and Rey went back to her office. They sat there in silence for a bit. Rey told Finn everything that Caedus had told her.  
Finn sat in silence for a minute and asked “Should we tell the chancellor about all of this?  
“No. I’ve already told her about Caedus and the Tsavong guy. If we tell her about his relationship to Ben, it will be even harder to convince her to pardon him.”  
Finn sighed. “Good point, I’m gonna go check on Alastor with his hand and see what else I can find about the meeting on Dathomir.”   
Rey nodded. “Good idea. I need to go have a word with my husband about his friend.”


	7. Ben Solo

Ben woke up with a start. Groaning, he crawled out of bed and washed his face and reapplied some ointment onto his hand. He was still reeling from everything that had happened last night. He still hadn’t been able to get a hold of Rey or Finn yesterday, his grandfather’s message was still on his mind and bothering him, and he now didn’t have a lightsaber for his new white crystal. Ben spent most of the day doing random chores, he went into town and bought food, some more medical supplies in case another lightsaber blew up in his face, and then looked around for some things for a childs room. Unfortunately when the planet you live on is known for its crime and murder rate, finding things for a baby room was almost impossible. Ben settled on some wood. It wasn’t a lot and it was very expensive since wood doesn’t exactly grow everywhere on a desert planet. When he got back he tried his hardest to make a crib from it but it ended up looking more like a prison cell that gives splinters. Looking at it Ben started to think that prisoners might actually rather be in a cell than what he just made. Ben gave up doing it by hand, and used the force to strip the splinters off and arrange it in to look more like a crib. He realized that the baby probably would want something soft to sleep on. So he went into the living room and pulled a couch cushion off of the couch and pushed it into the crib. Just then he heard Rey’s starfighter land. He went out front to meet her. Rey ran up and hugged him. She smiled and took his hand.  
“How have things been here?” Rey noticed his burned hand and frowned.  
“What happened? Are you ok?”   
Ben laughed. “It’s a long story.” He told her about anakin coming to him and what he saw when he purified his crystal. Then he reluctantly told about how stupid he looked when he didn’t think about how his crystal would react to a lightsaber made by an angsty 23 year old.  
Rey laughed at him “I’m glad you’re ok… But about the academy. I ran into Caedus on Dathomir.” Reacting to Ben’s worried face she quickly kept going. “He didn’t fight me. He threatened me if I ever crossed him again but that’s a different story. He told me the same thing. That he knew you. That he was from Luke’s temple too.”  
Ben looked at her confused. “I don’t know anyone who looked like him. I can go to the ruins and see if I can find anything.. Luke didn’t put everything on datapads, he wrote some stuff down. Oh also look what I made”   
Ben showed Rey the sad crib he made.  
Rey paused and stared quietly at it for a bit. “This. Is a good start….”   
“You don’t like it.” Ben scratched his head.  
“Well.. Why did you put a couch cushion in it.” Rey was very clearly trying not to laugh. “Ok well I’m going to look at the Coruscant Jedi temple for information on Tsavong and then I’ll be back for a few days.”  
Ben smiled. “I’ll see you soon then.” He kissed her forehead and got into the X-wing that Rey left here from the last time she was here.   
When he got to the academy he felt a cold chill. Last time he was here was as Kylo Ren and he murdered a lot of people. He walked through the ruins and to his horror he could remember each mark on every single body that he went by. Ben knew that he had to keep going. Eventually he found the small metal container that Luke had kept with information on all of his students. He opened it and sifted through everything. He found his own file. Luke wrote:  
Ben Solo. Son of Leia Organa and Han Solo. My own nephew. Strong with the force.   
Doesn’t get along with the other students. Ben claims that they bully him, and exclude  
him from missions and claims that the other masters don’t want to teach him. I don’t   
see evidence of this and therefore will continue training him like usual. Ben needs   
constant attention. If he knew the truth about his grandfather Ben would break.  
Ben has a problem of moving close to the dark side. He force choked a student during  
a training session.   
Ben found out today about his grandfather and confronted me. I told that I had known  
and didn’t want to tell him because of his anger problem and the dark side pull.  
Ben put it down and stood still for a moment. He picked it back up and put it in his pocket. Ben kept sifting through the students and then froze. He looked at the description of this student and it lined up with Caedus, except for the yellow eyes and white skin. His real name was Jacen. The last name was scratched out and Ben had no idea why. If for some reason he could talk to Luke maybe he would ask about it. Ben took the information and put that in his pocket too. Walking through the academy and got to his X-wing and sat there for a little bit. At least he had learned some information, even if it was mostly useless. Ben started up the ship and flew back to Tatooine. He landed and looked around. He had gotten back before Rey did. He went inside and looked in the rooms. It was quiet. This for some reason unnerved him. He went to the room and sat down. Closing his eyes he reached out to the force. When he opened his eyes he was inside the old academy. He saw Luke and Caedus walking together. For some reason he couldn’t hear anything or move. Caedus was much different looking than Jacen. Jacen and Luke stopped and Luke had stopped smiling. He frowned at Jacen and shook his head. Jacen seemed to argue and then Luke went from serious to angry. He looked like he was shouting at Jacen and stopped. He took a deep breath and then put his hand on Jacen’s shoulder. Jacen shook Luke’s hand off of his shoulder and stormed away.   
Ben snapped out of the vision and realized he was now holding Jacen’s form in his hand. He stared at it for a second and then stood up when he heard Rey’s ship land. He walked out to greet her.


	8. Rey Solo

Rey flew through space and made it safely to Coruscant. Walking up the temple stairs she was stopped at the top by republic guards.  
“You can’t go in here. You need written permission from the chancellor herself.” The guard put his hand out to stop Rey from going in.   
Rey sighed and turned around and walked back. She took a transport ship to the capital and walked through to the chancellors quarters. There she was stopped by even more guards.  
“You can’t go in without permission from the chancellor.” The guard said annoyed.  
Rey sighed, “How am I supposed to go into the old Jedi temple if I need permission from the chancellor, when I can’t see the chancellor to get permission.”  
The guard stuttered for words when Marie opened the door. She smiled warmly when she saw Rey.  
“Rey! Please come in.” She looked at her guards. “Rey is the Jedi’s Grand Master. She is welcome in here anytime.” The Guards nodded but didn’t look happy about it.   
Rey walked into the chambers and sat down on a sofa with Marie. She didn’t really get a good look at Marie last time she was here. Marie was a tall and slim woman. She had nice curly brown hair and blue eyes. She was very tan with a very pretty face. One thing Rey noticed was that Marie didn’t wear makeup. This was odd to her, but in a good way. The women in the governments, as Rey had noted from this one and from studying past governments were always told to wear makeup to “seem more appealing.” In fact, just from walking through the halls without wearing makeup herself, Rey would get weird looks from people. She thanked the force that she didn’t have to be here very often.  
“So. What can I do for you?” Marie asked while pouring Rey a cup of water.  
“Oh, thanks. There are some documents I’ve been told might be in the old Jedi temple that I need for my temple. Things related to possible future Jedi and… others.” Rey didn’t like lying, but judging by Marie’s response last time Tsavong was brought up then She didn’t think Marie would just give her access.   
Marie smiled at her again. She liked to smile, Rey guessed. “Sure. I can give you full access to the whole Jedi temple anytime you need. Not that I don’t enjoy your visits.”  
“Thank you, that’s very kind.”  
Marie waved it away like it was nothing. “I have a question for you Rey. How far along are you?”  
Rey froze. Was it that obvious? “Um I think just a month or so.”  
Marie looked at her belly. This was making Rey uncomfortable. “It’s nice to know that Jedi can have relations. Last I heard the old Jedi were not allowed. Do you… Do you know who the father is?”   
“Yes…” Rey hesitated. She couldn’t lie and say Finn- That wasn’t fair to him or Ben. But she couldn’t tell the truth. Lucky for Rey, Marie didn’t push anymore than that.  
“I’m happy for you. You don’t need to tell me your personal life anymore than that. My door is always open if you need anything, but I have a meeting to get to soon so I must ask you to leave. Thank you for stopping by.”   
Rey bowed and then left. Getting back to the Jedi temple, Rey walked up the steps and was not stopped by the guards this time. Inside the temple she walks through the halls and makes it to the old library. A lot of the old readings from the old temple were destroyed. Probably during the raid of the temple all those years ago. Rey walks through as many rooms as she can, taking notes as where to go later to get more things for the academy. Eventually she finds a secret room back in the database of the temple. Inside of this room there was a terminal that has information on many alien species. She types the name Tsavong into the terminal and gets little results. She does find out that he is of a species known as the Yuuzhan Vong. All that she can find out is that Tsavong Lah is the Warmaster, which is basically the general. That means that there is probably someone stronger and bigger than him. Rey sees that they are from outside of the galaxy and then there is an extra note: “WARNING: this species might be resistant to force techniques. Do not engage if found. Run away. I repeat, do not engage, flee the area.”  
Rey puts this information on a datapad and starts to leave. While she was leaving Rey thinks about everything that happened in this temple. This temple is where Ben’s grandfather massacred the Jedi. Anakin Skywalker, or Darth Vader had done this on the order of her grandfather, Sheev Palpatine. Or Darth Sidious. Rey hated that she was related to him. She knew nothing about her parents and believes that Sidious had something to do with their deaths. Rey made it back to the entrance of the temple and walked to her ship. Suddenly out of nowhere Rey was hit with a huge wave or darkness. She collapsed under the pain and fell down the stairs. She awoke with a huge crowd around her muttering. Rey sat up and groaned.   
“Are you alright ma’am?” A woman crouched next to her.  
“Yes. Thank you.” Rey stood back up and shook herself off. What was that feeling? Rey realized that this must mean that something is coming. She sped up and got into her ship and flew back to see if Ben had made it home safe.   
When Rey got back to Tatooine she saw Ben’s ship and felt relief in her chest. She got out and ran into the house and basically tackled him. Ben looked at her shocked.  
“Are you ok? What’s wrong?” Ben grabbed Rey’s arms and looked at her concerned.  
“I- I… I felt something. Dark and cold. Something coming. I couldn’t stand it, I fainted. I had to make sure you were ok.” Rey was trembling while telling Ben this.  
“Yea, I’m fine. I got here about a half hour ago. I was a bit nervous for you and then I remembered Luke telling me how large that temple was. I was sure that you were just exploring. Also I found a real crib in town. So that’s pretty good. For someone stuck here anyway.” He smiled at her.  
Rey laughed. It felt good to be back with him. “What did you learn at the academy?”  
Ben scratched his head. They went and sat down and shared the info that they had learned from their missions.  
“So you don’t remember Jacen?” Rey asked.  
“Nope. Judging by the vision, he left before I had turned on Luke. He got out of there at the right moment.” Ben responded looking at the ground.  
“But where did he go after he left? How can we find out? I think he’s part of the reason I felt the darkness. Ben, if the message from the old temple is true then maybe Caedus and Tsavong Lah are bringing an army of the Yuuzhan Vong here to us.” Rey was incredibly worried hearing about this. The last thing the new government and Jedi order needed was a huge unstoppable army to fight. She didn’t know what they all would do. Rey didn’t have a huge amount of Jedi to take on this dark side user. Before Ben could respond her comlink went off and Finn appeared.  
“Rey.. you have to come back to Yavin 4. Caedus, Tsavong Lah and a small army of things that look like him are here. Caedus claims that he won’t move until you get here.” Finn told her nervously.  
Rey and Ben shared a look.   
“Go. You have to do this.” Ben nodded.  
Rey smiled trying to hide the fear that was rising inside of her. She got up and Ben held her for a while. She kissed him and then took off. Whatever happened next was uncertain, but Rey knew that the only thing to do was stand her ground. As she left hyperspace and saw Yavin 4, Rey was prepared for the worst.


	9. Ben Solo

Ben paced back and forth. Rey had just left for Yavin 4. He couldn’t go help her even though he really wanted to, he would be seen and arrested and that would be no help for anyone. He kept pacing. Should he go anyway? No. Yes? Maybe? No! Ben stopped pacing. He could take one of the ships here. Ben didn’t know why Rey kept leaving ships here if she didn’t want him leaving, it was basically an invitation to leave. He sighed and sat down in the living room. There was no radio so if anyone was seeing what was happening, Ben wouldn’t even get updates that way. He kept the comlink close by at all times. An hour went by with no word. He had to do something. Ben shook his head. Leaving was a poor choice. He got a good idea and took the speeder into town. He was going to go from shop to shop and pick up metal pieces that could be used in constructing his own lightsaber. It wasn’t like he hated using his grandfathers, but it wasn’t his and Ben would never forgive himself if something bad happened to it.   
He didn’t find much but he did find somethings that would work. He went around to the rest of the outdoor market and still found nothing of interest. It was nice to be able in the open, there was no republic interference here and again with everyone being some sort of criminal or old people retiring, it would be stupid to call someone to arrest him as they would end up arresting the whole damn town. He stopped in the bar and had a drink and some food and then went back home. There Ben spent some time cleaning the metal parts that he had purchased. He pulled some old scrap metal and cleaned them off too. Lastly he stripped the Kylo Ren lightsaber of any part that wasn’t blown and tossed the rest. Ben felt relieved to get rid of that stupid thing. He fashioned what he left into a makeshift lightsaber. It didn’t have the wires or anything to make it actually work, but it was an outline no less.   
Ben was getting more frustrated as the time went on. He tried communicating with Rey and didn’t hear anything. He tried Finn and finally got something. Finn was in his ship from the looks of it and did not look in good shape.  
“Ben… It’s bad. She’s hurt. We… we’re coming…. Stay put…” Finn groaned and the transmission cut off.  
Ben started to panic and tried to get back to Finn several times and heard nothing. He tried Rey and still didn’t hear anything. Has something happened to her comlink? Suddenly he heard 3 ships land and he sprinted out to meet them. Poe jumped out of his ship and Finn practically fell out. Rey didn’t move. Ben ran to her ship and used the force to rip the cover off. He scooped her up and carried her inside. Dropping her safely on their bed Ben went out to meet Poe and Finn, who were sitting at their table.   
“What. Happened.” Ben asked, barely able to breath.  
“Caedus and some of that white thing’s friends were there. Finn was able to let me know and I took a squad to help them. Caedus attacked Finn and then went after Rey. He did some damage but right before he was going to kill her I got a good shot of him and he took his friends and left. I could only get Rey out of there by putting an autopilot on and following her to make sure nothing happened.” Poe explained it all but couldn’t look Ben in the eyes.   
Finn raised his head. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t do anything. I tried… I hope she’s ok.. Her and the babies…”   
Ben looked at Finn confused. “Wait, did you just say babies? Like plural?”   
Finn had already slumped back down and closed his eyes. Ben looked at Poe for an explanation but Poe just shrugged his shoulders. He looked as confused as Ben did. Ben walked into their room and sat down on the bed next to his unconscious wife. He stroked her hair and prayed that she would wake up. As he stared at Rey anger started to rise inside of him. He knew the people who were responsible. And he knew that he would get revenge. Ben thought that Caedus better hope that Rey woke up. Or whatever was coming for him was about to be a lot worse than the galaxy had ever seen.


	10. Rey Solo

Rey arrived at Yavin 4 faster than she ever had. Landing on the landing pad at the back of the temple she quickly made her way through and met Finn at the steps to the temple. He stood there and didn’t even move when Rey came next to him.  
“He’s waiting for you. He told me he wouldn’t move until you arrived.” Finn said gravely.  
Rey looked out at the field and saw what Finn was talking about. Caedus was standing in the field with a small army of the Yuuzhan Vong behind him.   
“Don’t worry. You can go meet him, I contacted Poe, he’s bringing troops just in case.”  
Rey hesitated and walked down to meet him. Caedus did not smile this time but just stared at her coldly.  
“What are you doing here? This is a nice army you’ve got with you. Here for war?” Rey asked accusingly.  
“I warned you Rey. I told you not to cross me again, or you would suffer the consequences. But here you are. I heard about your trip to the temple. The Yuuzhan Vong don’t like being investigated. Neither do I. If your husband didn’t have any information don’t you think it isn’t worth anything?” Caedus asked all of this without taking a breath.  
“I can’t let you take this galaxy. You’re just a fake dark Jedi and I will treat you as such.”  
Caedus laughed at her. “No, my dear. I am THE dark Jedi. I am Darth Caedus, the true heir to the sith throne. I will become the new emperor and the Yuuzhan Vong will rule this galaxy too! Now I’m going to kill you. I’m going to kill Finn. I’m going to kill the handless wonder I met on Dathomir. And I’m going to kill Ben Solo.” Caedus laughed and ignited his lightsaber. He was about to strike before being distracted. Several republic ships had flown down and dropped off troops. Poe locked eyes with Rey and she nodded the go for an attack. Poe gravely nodded back and gave the order. A roar came from the troops and they all charged, led by Finn and Poe. The Yuuzhan Vong let out a blood curdling scream and charged.   
When Rey ignited her lightsaber and spun around Darth Caedus was gone. She charged with Finn and the rest of the Jedi who had joined the fight and clashed with the Yuuzhan Vong warriors. They were skilled; she would give them that and even managed to doge her lightsaber. Rey knew the fight would only end if Caedus was taken down. She slashed through warriors and tried to find the red lightsaber. The fight was brutal. Rey was sure she had seen some of her Jedi on the ground either wounded or dead. The Republic army wasn’t faring too well either. Rey knew that the sith were known for being arrogant, so a thought popped into her mind. What if she could taunt him into calling off his soldiers for a one on one with her. She charged through the field taking down anything that she had too and after what seemed like forever Rey finally found the Red saber. She was getting a bit nervous about her plan, the fight had gone on for too long and she was exhausted. Even the Yuuzhan Vong looked like they had not expected the Jedi and Republic to put up this much of a fight. She ran as fast as she could at Darth Caedus and used the force to shove him. He stumbled a bit and whipped around to see who had done that. He snarled and leapt at her with incredible speed. She sidestepped him and swung the second half of her lightsaber around to catch him off guard. He easily blocked it and pushed her back. They both stood there for a second breathing heavily.   
“Where’s your big friend?” Rey asked him  
“Off waging war somewhere else. He has his own fights to take care of, I’m not his babysitter.” Darth Caedus snapped.  
“But you’ll babysit these warriors? Why not fight ME. You told ME not to cross you. Seems cowardly to involve everyone else.” Rey taunted him hoping it was working. She couldn’t do this for much longer. Suddenly Finn was next to her, his blue lightsaber humming.   
“Enough of this. Call off your warriors and fight us!” Finn must have realized her plan and joined in.   
Caedus shook his head. “I’m not stupid. We fight like men. With an army with me!”   
Finn charged him. Caedus half laughed and lunged at him too. They clashed for several minutes trying to fight for the upper hand. Eventually Darth Caedus found a weak point on Finn. He kicked Finn’s leg out and slashed him across the face. Finn screamed and hit the floor on his back holding his face. Caedus picked him up with the force and threw him across the field. Finn hit a rock with a sickening thud and rolled the floor blood everywhere. Rey screamed and stopped fight the Yuuzhan Vong and charged her and ran at Caedus. Without even blinking he lifted her in the air and held her upside down.  
“Which body part do you least need? Your head?” He laughed like a maniac and dropped her.   
Rey hit the floor hard and stood up dazed. Heart pounding, she stumbled toward him. Caedus swung violently at her with his saber and she barely managed to block it. He swung again and she blocked it and fell backward. Breathing hard she tried to stand up again and fell onto her knees. Staggering onto her feet Rey tried once more to strike at Caedus. He sidestepped easily and struck her arm and then nicked her cheek. He used the force to pick her up and smiled.   
“I’m going to kill you Rey. You and the three lifeforms I feel through the force inside you. A pity. They could have made great users of the force.”  
Rey’s face went white when Caedus said three.  
He laughed at her. “Oh you had no idea. Well I'm sorry to be the one to break the news. I’ll get rid of your head to give them a chance. A small chance but maybe Ben can be a father still.”  
Rey started to find it hard to breath and realized he was force choking her. He had a cruel smile on her face and then started to slowly bring her toward him. She realized that he hadn’t killed her yet because he was enjoying this. Rey’s vision started to go fuzzy and all she could see was a red blur getting closer. All she could think about was how sorry she was to Ben. Suddenly she heard a scream and she was dropped to the floor. She made out what must have been Poe and Finn running toward her. She heard the retreat order called for Darth Caedus and that she was starting to get carried away. Rey remembered being put into her fighter and then she blacked out.

3 months later….


	11. Ben Solo

Ben woke up in the morning and rolled over to check on Rey. She was deep in sleep, which was good since she hasn’t really been able to sleep since the fight with Darth Caedus. It had been a long few months. They had struggled with getting Rey back to full health, she still wasn’t. They struggled with the news of triplets, after Darth Caedus had taunted Rey with that news both of them had gone to see a doctor on Tatooine who did some tests and confirmed that they were going to have three babies. Ben had restarted the moisture farm that Luke’s aunt and uncle used to run to try and make some extra money. So far it was running well but that plus Rey’s salary from the Republic still might not be enough for three kids. Along with that, Yuuzhan Vong attacks were common now along the galaxy. Nothing huge, but raids. No sign of Darth Caedus however. He would stay hidden, but the warmaster Tsavong Lah would appear from time to time. Anytime he appeared, it pretty much was a guarantee that the Yuuzhan Vong would win the battle. Rey had stayed home the past 3 months, with a mostly healed Finn taking the responsibilities of the Grand Master. The scar across his face that cut from one side of his chin, through his mouth and up to the eye was deeper than Ben’s was and looked more painful.   
“Ben…” Rey weakly called for him. Ben turned around and noticed she was standing at the doorway holding the door frame for support.   
“Hey hey, what are you doing?” Ben walked over and held her up.  
“I wanted to see where you went. I thought you left.” Rey leaned on him trembling.  
She was having nightmares all of the time and had told Ben many of them included him falling back to the dark side and leaving her, or the Yuuzhan Vong and Darth Caedus killing them both and taking their children.   
“I’m not leaving you. I’m gonna help you back to bed and make some food.” Ben carried her back to the bed and tucked her in. Ben sighed, and went to the kitchen and toasted some bread and made rice. By the time he put it on a plate and got her a glass of water, Rey was already back asleep. He put the tray beside her and walked outside to tinker with the X-wing that was out there. He hadn't spent much time out there before a ship landed. Ben pulled out from underneath the X-wing and watched Poe jump out of his own X-wing. Poe walked over to greet him.  
“Hey, how’s Rey doing?” Poe asked.  
“Um, better. She’s asleep right now.” Ben answered. Poe nodded. They stood there in awkward silence for a few minutes.   
“Do you. Wanna come in?” Ben asked.  
“Uh, sure. I guess I have a bit of time.” Poe responded awkwardly. They walked into the house and Ben made them some more food and they sat down. Neither of them said anything while they ate and it was probably the most awkward meal that Ben has ever had. Rey walked out of the room and sat down next to Ben. She leaned on him. Ben looked at her face and saw nothing but sadness. Ben kissed the top of her head and let her take the rest of the food he had on his plate. It was good to see that she was eating, so Ben had no problem letting her eat her found and his. Poe smiled and then looked down.   
“I should probably go. Thanks for the food.” Poe nodded and left.   
Ben coughed and Rey flinched.   
He didn’t know what happened that day but whatever it was ruined her. He was pretty frustrated that he wasn’t there to help her. Next time something came up he would run to help. Even if it meant getting arrested he would be there for her. Ben gently got up from the table and led Rey to the bathroom. He washed her face and then his own. He looked up and Rey was looking at the ground. She had one hand on the sink and one hand on her stomach. She had said very little the past 3 months and it was starting to worry him. They went back to the bed and Ben decided to try and get her to talk today.  
“The farm is going well. We should have enough money for everything we need.” Ben told her, smiling.  
“That’s good.” Rey responded and gave a half smile. It was better than nothing. For the rest of the day Rey made good progress, they went on a walk and worked on the moisture farm. They ended the day by meditating. Things got a bit better, but Ben knew they still had a ways to go. Ben started to think that part of the trauma wasn’t about Rey being injured but her fear about the babies being injured. He decided he was going to work over the next week to make sure she could be back in shape. But Rey probably wouldn’t be joining the Jedi order again until after the babies were born. Ben called Finn and told him what he thought. Finn nodded and left. He wasn’t doing great either. Ben had a lot of respect for Finn. He took on the roles of a leader and was dealing with healing just like Rey was. Ben had a side mission while he helped her heal.   
Find Darth Caedus.


	12. Poe Dameron

After Poe left Ben and Rey, he decided to fly around for a while. He started to feel bad about how he treated Ben. Poe didn’t think he was necessarily wrong about wanting Ben to be punished for his crimes but after seeing how caring he was to Rey, he understood a bit more of what she had told him about Kylo Ren and Ben Solo being different people. Poe knew he had a meeting with the chancellor and he knew that she would ask him about the battles with the Yuuzhan Vong and the search for Kylo Ren who she was sure was helping the new sith lord. He decided to not put the meeting off anymore, and flew back to Coruscant. Landing in the Military base, he jumped out and walked through the base. He looked around for his droid BB-8 but couldn’t find him. Poe thought that he would find him later and make sure that BB-8 was ready for another mission. He made it to the senate building and the guards at the entrance of Marie’s quarters let her in. She was sitting at the table waiting for him. Marie used to smile a lot. Like a lot. She hadn’t smiled recently because of all of the attacks.  
“Thanks for coming, Poe. Have a seat. It’ll just be us today.” Marie’s voice was grave.  
“Sounds good. What can I do for you today?” Poe asked politely, trying to hide the nervousness in his voice.  
“Three more attacks. Dantooine, Naboo, and Bespin. Bespin was lost. We kept Dantooine, and Naboo.” She sighed, rubbing her forehead. “Do you know anything about Darth Caedus? Where he is?”  
“No.” Poe shook his head. “I still disagree that Kylo Ren is involved.”  
“There is no evidence of it happening, but it is just a theory. Who’s to say that after losing the galaxy by the resistance and Rey that he doesn’t want revenge? That he didn’t train someone new and that's why she was attacked?”  
“Well if that’s the case we’ll find out. In the meantime what would you like me to do?” Poe asked leaning forward in his seat.  
“We snuck an operative inside of the Black Sun and he’s feeding us info. They’ve amassed a small army and are trying to attack Naboo after the Yuuzhan Vong attacked. They’re going after Theed. I need you to take a squad to go help them. The city's army isn’t going to be enough after the damage that they’ve sustained. It’s storming there and the Black Sun is going to mount an attack any second.” Marie told him his orders and nodded as to tell him to leave.  
Poe stood up and swiftly walked out. He called his best men to join him and then getting his X-wing ready ran into BB-8.  
“BB-8 buddy! There you are, I was looking all over for you. Let’s go, we got a battle to fight in.” Poe was really happy to see the little buddy.  
BB-8 beeped angrily at him.  
“You know I can’t actually understand you right? Wait to yell at him till we get in the X-wing.”  
Poe jumped in the cockpit and waited for BB-8 to be pulled into the ship. They took off for the planet of Naboo.  
BB-8 beeped more annoyed this time  
“Well the chancellor wanted me, I had to go see her!”  
BB-8 beeped urgently  
“Yea, I heard about Naboo. That’s where we’re going.”  
BB-8 beeped faster.  
“Wait what? The attack already started??? Son of a bi-” Then Poe blasted off to hyperspace.  
They made it to Naboo, and started the descent to the planet. They hit a thunderstorm on their descent and it made it quite a rocky trip down. Poe landed at the palace and jumped out. BB-8 was right, the battle had already started. He pulled out his blaster and sprinted down to help out with the rest of the republic. Poe led the charge down and they joined the fight. It was a brutal match so far. The Black Sun warriors weren’t just shooting at the Naboo residents, they were charging and brutally beating them down with swords and clubs. Poe sprinted into cover and shot a Black Sun straight in the head to save a Naboo guard. The fight went on for a while. Both armies were trying to push the other one all the way back and it wasn’t working. It was like a game of tug of war. No progress was being made. Eventually though, the Black Sun got smart and started throwing explosives. They hit a good strike on a tower and it collapsed crushing republic and naboo soldiers. The rain was making it hard to see. With a tower down, and soldiers dead, the Black Sun was starting to make ground to get into the temple. Panicking, Poe knew he needed to call backup. He couldn’t call Finn, he was too busy. Rey was out of commission. He didn’t know any of the other Jedi at the temple so he made a risky move. Poe pulled out his comlink and made the call.  
“Ben. I need your help on Naboo, It’s storming and the Black Sun is advancing and we can’t win, please come here!” Poe pleaded.  
“What about being seen?” Ben asked hesitantly.  
“I’ll come up with some excuse about a different Jedi, no one will know, it’s storming. Please.” Poe was begging at this point.  
Ben nodded at him. “I’m coming.” He hung up.  
Poe hoped that Ben would be here soon. He didn’t know how much longer they could last. After what seemed like hours of desperately shooting and being pushed back and a huge Black Sun gang member slammed into Poe from the side. Poe was knocked on his back. The man started walking toward him and pulled a huge sword from his belt. He raised it in the air and right before he striked, a blue blade went through his chest and he fell on the floor. Ben stood over him with his lightsaber at his side. He nodded at Poe and then took off. After Ben had entered the battlefield, the fight took maybe another half hour. He was like a blue tornado. The men were either cut down or sent flying through the air from the force. Those who were left ran away to flee back to their ships to leave. Before Poe could even say anything to Ben, he had already left and fled back to his ship. The Naboo army cheered and hugged each other and the republic soldiers. He smiled and walked back to his X-wing and left. He needed to make sure that the chancellor had got a report, and to make sure that no one got wind of Ben being there, he decided to try and get there first. He made it back quickly and met Marie at the same table he had left her. In fact, he wasn’t sure she had ever left. This time she greeted him with her warm smile.  
“Poe. Thank you so much for your help. The Naboo representatives have already sent me a million thank yous.”  
“Anytime. In times like these, we all need to help each other.” Poe took his usual seat.  
“Yes, agreed. I have one question for you though. One of the republic soldiers swears that he saw a man that looked at the description of Kylo Ren. Several times. Actually, several troops reported this back to me. One of them said he saved your life. Did you see this?” Marie started to question him, the smile fading and being replaced with a harsh seriousness.  
“Yea, a Jedi saved me. It uh. Couldn’t have been him. Kylo Ren has a red lightsaber. Real weird too. Wavey and it’s got extra blades. This one was blue. And more focused.” Poe shifted nervously in his seat.  
“I thought that blue lightsabers were for the good guys.” Marie had little knowledge of what went on inside of the Jedi temple, and neither did Poe.  
“Yea. Well, maybe it was him and he’s good now. Rey tells me that people being seduced by the dark side become different people. Like that Kylo Ren is different from Ben Solo. Maybe he’s turned a new leaf and has come back from the dark?” Poe suggested this cautiously as to not let Marie on the fact that he knew all of this already.  
“Well unless he can bring back all those people he killed from the dead, he hasn’t changed enough to me. I’ll let my people know that he has a new blue lightsaber to try and blend in. They have a decent description despite the storm so hopefully we can catch him next time he tries to… help. You may go. Keep in touch General.” Marie smiled again, but to Poe this one looked less friendly.  
Poe decided to slip away to Tantooine one last time to give Ben a few thank you gifts that he thought might help. He jumped into the X-wing without BB-8 just in case someone watched him go and decided to check the little droid's memory bank to see where he went, and flew off to see his new friend.


	13. Ben Solo

Ben made it back to Tatooine, and jumped out of his ship. He was still soaking from the storm on Naboo. It felt really good to get out and do something. He walked into the house and went to the bathroom and took a towel and tried his best to dry off his hair. He looked up and saw Rey standing in the doorway.   
“Where were you?” Rey asked. “Where did you go?”  
“Helping Poe. It was a stealth mission. No one saw me. He called me.” Ben explained slowly so as to not upset her.  
Rey stared at him for a long time. “No one saw you? You promise?”   
“I- I think so. I was careful. When I fought I was careful not to fall back to the dark.” Ben told her. He took her hand and they walked to the dining room. She sat down and before Ben could sit down next to her he heard a ship land. Poe walked through the door and ran to Ben and gave him a huge hug.  
“You did it, you saved us!!! Thank you! God, I misjudged you. I’m sorry Ben. Dude I’m sorry. Here. This should help you find a loophole or something since It’s harder to help you with all of this stuff going on in the galaxy right now.” Poe handed Ben some Republic law books. “I sto- borrowed some books about all of the laws that involve war criminals and fugitives.” Poe slapped Ben on the shoulder and then went and sat down beside Rey. She smiled at him and gave him a hug.  
“Uh, Ben just so you know, You uh, well you did great. But a few troops might have seen you and told the Chancellor and now she knows that you have a blue lightsaber and she’s increasing the search for you and I couldn’t convince her that you had turned to the light.” Poe said this all so far and in one breath.  
“What?!?!” Rey shot up from her seat.  
Ben slammed his head into the table.  
“I know it seems bad. But I promise that we’ll find something! Soon! Ok, it doesn’t look good. But it’s not like she got any better leads. She doesn’t know where you are. So it’s not too bad.” Poe tried to get them both to feel better.  
“But she knows that you’re alive. That’s not good. What if she comes here? What if someone follows you? You can’t control that. Poe I’m so happy that you believe me about Ben, but you probably shouldn’t come here again for a while. Just to be safe.” Rey stood up and started walking in circles.   
Poe nodded. “You’re probably right. See you guys later. Good luck Ben.”   
He walked out of the room and left in his X-wing. Ben took the books and sat down at the table and opened the first one. He read the first page and then looked up and noticed that Rey was staring at him from across the table.   
“What?” Ben questioned her and tilted his head.  
“You got caught. You promised me you would be careful!” Rey was really annoyed and she wasn’t really holding back. Ben didn’t really know how to deal with it.  
“Well I didn’t try to. I needed to help, Poe might have died if I didn’t help.” Ben tried really hard to explain. “Please. I can’t stay hidden forever. And if I keep helping people then eventually I can have a big enough case to come out to the open and not have any crimes against me. If I keep helping people then everyone will see that I’m not really that bad.”  
“Well.. I guess. Ok that makes sense. Just. Please, don’t actually be caught before you find everything out.” Rey grabbed his hand and Ben realized she was shaking.   
“I won’t get caught. I got this. We have to find a way to get me out of here, you all the way better, Find out where Darth Caedus is and stop the Black Sun and stop the Yuuzhan Vong. Ben nodded confidently at her.  
Rey stood there staring at him again for like a minute.   
“That’s a lot. That’s not a good thing, you know that right? Like we need to get started on all of this right now. I’m going to look through the books. You go figure out where Darth Caedus is.”  
Ben nodded. “I have an idea.”  
He walked to his fighter and jumped in. Taking off in the ship he landed back in Luke’s Jedi academy. He stepped out and then walked through the ruins again. Ben knew that the force had taken him here but he didn’t really know why.   
Then he got his answer.  
“So you came? I assume the force led you here too? To me.”  
Ben spun around to see that Darth Caedus was behind him. The two men stared at each other for a while in silence.  
“Why are you here.” Ben tried to ask calmly, but he was really shaking with rage. This man almost killed Rey and their children.   
Caedus laughed. “I could ask you the same thing. Why is the ex-supreme leader of the galaxy here? The place he hated so much he killed everyone he could find and burned the place down. Because the force told you to. You know why right? Because it would lead you to me. We will fight. I will win. It’s easy, we don’t have to do this. It’d be easier for you to just kneel. I’ll cut your head off. Quick and painless. I’ll leave Rey alone.” Darth Caedus ignited his lightsaber and smiled. It wasn’t a normal smile, it was bloodthirsty and evil. This man had been completely corrupted. Ben unclipped Anakin’s lightsaber from his waist and ignited it. The two men charged at each other and met in the middle. The two men stood there pushing at each other until Ben pushed him back with the force. Caedus did a flip and rolled a few times. He quickly stood up and charged Ben again. This time there was not pushing, they just kept swinging. Ben jumped off a fallen support beam and swung at Caedus. Caedus smiled and stopped him in the air. Slowly bringing Ben toward him he stuck his lightsaber out waiting to impale him. Ben closed his eyes and tried to channel the force as much as he could and tried really hard to stop himself from moving. It worked and then Ben pushed Caedus to the floor, landed on the ground on both feet and using his hand he grabbed the fallen beam near him and brought it over Darth Caedus and tried to drop it. Right before it would have crushed him Caedus grabbed it and sent it in the air and blew it up. He jumped back up and closed his eyes. He pointed his hand at Ben and shot lightning at him. Ben deflected it with his lightsaber and tried really hard to make sure it didn’t blow it out of his hand. He pushed forward toward Caedus and when Caedus realized what he was trying to do he stopped and reignited his lightsaber. They clashed again and then pushed each other back and stopped. They breathed heavily, both out of breath.   
“You…. Can’t….. Beat…. Me……” Caedus was breathing hard.   
“Yes…. I…. Can….” Ben spit back out.  
“Well… Then… Let’s… Keep… Going…” Caedus reignited his lightsaber.  
Ben followed suit and ignited his lightsaber. They walked toward each other and tried to fight again. It was clear that both men were equally matched and it would come down to who slipped up first. Caedus threw his lightsaber at Ben like a boomerang, Ben ducked and tried to hit it on its way back but missed and hit the blade. That was better than nothing because it flew away from him. The two men looked at each other and they both dove for the saber. Ben swung at Caedus to try and stop him but it didn’t work. Caedus dodged him and stuck his arm out and his lightsaber flew to his hand.   
“Oh fuck this.” Ben groaned and mustered all the strength he could and gave the biggest force push he could.  
“Wait wha-” Before Darth Caedus could finish he was sent flying, so far that Ben couldn’t see him anymore.  
“Well. That was a colossal waste of time.” Ben put his hands on his hips and sighed.   
He walked back to his ship and just for fun, when he got in he shot and blew up Darth Caedus’s ride home. Making it back to Tatooine, he walked inside and told Rey what happened.  
“Well.. you learned nothing but at least you beat him.” Rey got him a glass of water and they walked to bed together.   
“I wouldn’t say beat. More like a draw. I’m. I’m really tired.” Before Ben could even turn to see Rey or even get the blanket over him he fell asleep.


	14. Rey Solo

Rey was making lunch. She had been stuck on Tatooine for 3, almost 4 months now. She understood what Ben meant when he said it drove him crazy. They were running low on food, when Ben woke up she would let him know and they would go into town together. Rey felt much better than she did even a week ago. Ben was great about helping her. She went into their room and smiled. He had a long mission yesterday, used a lot of the force and came back and promptly fell asleep. He’d been asleep since and had barely moved. She only knew he wasn’t dead by his deep breathing. Rey went outside and polished her lightsaber. It hadn’t been used in a really long time, and it probably wouldn’t be used for a while more, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be clean. Rey hated not being at the Jedi temple and she hated not knowing what was going on. She pulled out her comlink and called Finn.  
“Hey, whats up? You ok?” Finn looked alarmed at her call.  
“I’m fine. I wanted to check in and see how everything was going.” Rey had to laugh at his panicked face.  
“Oh! Yes, it’s great. Everyone misses you but since the republic offered guard and money we’ve got some new recruits. It’s great. We’re already growing a ton. I’ve done a lot of studying and I think I’m getting a better hang of the force. We took down a few Black Sun bases but man, they keep growing. If we don’t find out where their main headquarters are soon they’re going to be a full military force.”  
Rey sighed. “Good news and then bad news. It’s better than nothing.”   
She told Finn about Ben’s fight with Darth Caedus yesterday.  
“Ok, well that’s great news!” Finn was very excited about that for some reason.  
“What do you mean great news? It was super close, if Ben hadn’t gotten away when he did who knows what would have happened.” Rey didn’t understand where Finn was coming from at all.  
“But if Ben can take on Darth Caedus now, he just needs to keep up training and next time something big happens, he can take on Caedus and we can deal with the Yuuzhan Vong. He just needs to make sure that he keeps up with Caedus’s training.” Finn explained.  
“Yea… we don’t know his training though. It’s not like we have a bunch of stuff here for him to use.” Rey bounced back.   
Finn waved his hand “Ben will figure something out. Anyway, I heard he and Poe are getting along better. That’s a relief to hear. I gotta go, good to hear from you, stay in touch!”  
Finn disappeared from the com. Rey shook her head and stood up, which was getting to be a bit of a chore these days. She walked into the dining area and saw Ben sitting at the table reading one of the books that Poe gave him.  
“Any luck?” She asked him, sitting down beside him to see what he was reading.  
“Nope. This one basically says that anyone that commits any kind of war crime should be killed no matter what so. That’s not any use. Later in the book though an amendment states that in specific circumstances that can be forgiven, but being seduced by the dark side and coming back isn’t one of them so again, no use.” He didn’t move his head up from the book and just kept flipping through it.  
“Well I’m sure you’ll find something. Feeling better?” Rey got up and walked toward the cupboards. “We need to go get supplies. Will you go to town with me?”  
Ben shut the book and stood up. “Yea I am. Sure let’s go now.”   
They got in the speeder and went to town. For a while they couldn’t find anything interesting, Ben got some wires for the new lightsaber he wanted to make. Something caught Rey’s eye. She moved over toward the salesman who was selling rocks. She looked through them trying to figure out what had glowed. There it was, sitting on the table. A kyber crystal. She picked it up and rolled it around in her hand. It was clear which meant it hadn’t been used before. If it was used the lightsaber would have picked a color based on the user’s affinity with the force.   
“How much for this?” She asked the salesman.  
“That? Oh I don’t know... “ He looked at it confused. “Where did I get that? Shoot lady… 12 credits.”   
Rey took the money out of her pouch and gave it to the man. He took the money and nodded. She walked back to find Ben. She found him leaning against a wall staring at a picture. Confused, she walked up to him and looked at the photo. It was of a very handsome man who kind of looked familiar and a beautiful woman. She looked at Ben’s face and saw shock and sadness.  
“Who are they?” Rey asked him gently.  
“One of the storekeepers had it. Said it was found on the skywalker moisture farm years ago. It’s signed on the back saying from Obi-Wan Kenobi. It’s my grandparents.” Ben muttered softly.  
Rey looked at the photo. That’s why the man looked familiar, she had seen him when she passed out 2 years ago fighting Darth Sidious.   
“What was your grandma’s name? She’s very pretty.” Rey asked.  
“Padmé amidala. She was the queen of Naboo for a while and then senator. I bet she’s buried there.” Ben explained, not looking up. “She died right after Anakin turned to Darth Vader. Interesting that this photo exists. Their marriage was a secret, in the old Jedi order the Jedi were not allowed to love.”  
Rey had heard of that rule and was very confused by it. But being that she joined the Jedi much later than other people usually did, it made sense that she didn’t understand. Still, it seemed like a very hard rule to track with your order.  
“We should go visit her grave.” Rey said. “Not in the day, but tonight. Maybe you can feel something from her, even if she wasn’t force sensitive.” She quickly added seeing Ben’s face at the thought of going to a populated planet with a fugitive.  
Ben thought hard about it for a minute. “Ok, sure. Let’s go tonight. We can wear the Jedi robes to cover our faces.”  
Rey nodded. “I’ll bring flowers.”  
Ben looked at her as they walked back to the speeder, with food and supplies in hand. “You’re pretty great, you know that?”  
Rey smiled. “I have my moments.”


	15. Ben Solo

Ben and Rey finished eating dinner and changed into Jedi robes. They got into different ships just to be safe, and flew to Naboo. Landing outside the palace at night Rey jumped out of her ship and asked a guard where to find Padmé’s grave. He pointed her in the right direction and she started walking in there. Ben jumped out of his ship and followed her. Rey slowed down to give him some time to catch up and together they walked to her grave. There was a large tomb for her, and a ton of flowers. They were still fresh meaning that even though it had been many many years since she had died people still were coming to pay their respect. Rey put the flowers down and Ben walked up and kneeled down by the tomb. He put his hand on his grandmother's statue and closed his eyes.  
“Help me. I can’t do this. There’s so much riding on everything going perfect in the coming months to stop the galaxy from falling into full scale war and I can’t do this stuck at home. I need to come out. I need to be free. If in any way you can hear me, please send help...” Ben had to stop talking, his voice started to break. Everything that was happening and stressing him out came crashing down at once.  
Rey kneeled beside him. “How did she die?”  
“She died of a broken heart. The betrayal of my father was too much. She died right after me and Leia were born.”  
Rey and Ben stood up and spun around to see the force ghost of Luke Skywalker standing there smiling at them.  
“Ben. My brave boy. You did it. I knew you would come back to us. I’m so proud of you.” Luke walked toward them with a warm smile on his face as he looked at his nephew.  
“You’re proud of me?.. After all that I did? I’m part of the reason that you died. Me and Snoke baited you. You died because of me. The academy died because of me. Darth Caedus is here because of me.” Ben was very confused at the sudden love from his uncle.  
Luke shook his head. “Ben, I forgave Anakin Skywalker who did much worse than you did for much longer. What you did was terrible. But just like Vader, you fell from the light. Snoke did that to you. I’m here to talk to you about Darth Caedus.”  
Ben sighed. “It seems like every force ghost is here to talk to me about Caedus.”  
“Yes, he is a great threat. Anakin told me about meeting you. I’m glad you could speak to him. But on topic. Jacen didn’t turn to the dark side because of you. He turned because of Rey.” Luke finished and pointed at Rey.  
Ben and Rey looked at each other confused.  
“Me? What did I do?” Rey asked, alarmed.  
Luke shrugged. “You were born. He’s your half brother. Palpatine’s son was busy after his father died. He had a few children. I think you and Jacen are the only two. Jacen is Jacen Palpatine.”  
Ben thought about it. “That’s why he thinks he’s the rightful heir of the sith. His grandfather was the lord of the sith for so long, that he thinks that he should be able to just take the galaxy.”  
“Yes. He left the Jedi academy to try and find his sister so he could kill her. I told him that if he left with those intentions, that he should not come back.” Luke explained.  
“Did.. did you know it was me?” Rey asked.  
“No. I didn’t know about your lineage until I had passed away. Anakin told me. I still would have helped you. So would Leia.” Luke told Rey.  
“So he wanted to kill Rey to make sure that he had easy access to the throne.” Ben tried to put it all together  
“That’s how he knew who I was. He knew my name. He knew that Ben and I are married…” Rey nodded at Ben.  
Luke paused. “It’s a good thing he never found you. You need to stop him. Things will only get worse.” Luke walked over and smiled at the statue of his mother. “It’s nice to see her. I should visit more often.”   
Then he disappeared. Rey and Ben looked at each other.  
“Well this was a journey and a half.” Ben looked down and took her hand.   
“We should go… I need to think about this.” Rey muttered.  
“Yea. Let’s go.” Ben agreed.  
He looked around to make sure that no one else was nearby and then started walking to their ships. They got there safely and took off. Making it back to Tatooine, Rey stood outside staring at the night sky. Ben walked up to her and put his hand on her shoulder.  
“You ok?” He asked  
“Yea. It’s just. A lot. I didn’t know my family for so long and I just wanted to know them. But then I find out that a lot of them are horrible people. My grandfather, my brother, who even knows if my parents were good people or not. Just because they hid me from my past doesn’t mean that they did it for me. What if they did it for themselves. They never came back from me, never sent any messages, never did anything to help. They died. I don’t even know their names. All I know is that the family that I know all tried to kill me. And if you go back further, My great grandparents were known to be bad people too. Not murders maybe, but racists, and misogynists. They were scummy politicians. Everything in my life is set out to be horrible, from my lineage to where I grew up.” Rey looked at Ben with tears in her eyes.  
Ben grabbed her shoulders. “You are not evil. You are one of the most good people that has ever walked this galaxy. It isn’t about your family. It’s about you. You are a great Jedi. And you will be a great mother. Because of you our children will be wonderful people. It’s ok.” He smiled at her.  
Rey sighed and wiped the tears off of her cheeks. She leaned into Ben and they stood there for a while. Ben took a deep breath. He felt bad for Rey. His family, while it has a dark spot with Darth Vader, Much of his family were heroes. Anakin Skywalker, Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Han Solo. Rey had nothing. Well she had Sheev Palpatine, but that’s not much.  
“Come on. Let’s go inside.” He took her hand and they walked inside. Ben smelt like a dead Bantha that was rolled in his own poop. They took a shower and Ben went outside one more time. He checked on the Moisture farm and let the wind dry his hair. It was funny, he felt like he was in some weird movie and that his hair would move in slow motion. In reality he probably looked like an idiot, but they don’t have any neighbors so he let himself enjoy this moment. Ben was enjoying the cool air, and then he felt a cold chill up his spine. Spinning around Ben thought he saw a figure a ways out. He squinted trying to see who it was more. The figure moved closer. A red light shined from the figure. Ben froze. It was Darth Caedus. He ran back inside and ran into the room. Rey was braiding her wet hair.   
“We have to go. Where is my lightsaber!” Ben yelled, panicking.   
“Wait what? What’s going on?” Rey was very confused  
“Darth Caedus is here. We should go.” Ben said this all very quickly.  
“Are you sure?” Rey looked at him like she didn’t believe him.  
“I’ll show you.” Ben ran outside and pointed. “There. Nope nothing is there.”  
Rey looked at him. “I’m going back to bed. You’re seeing things.” She turned away and walked into the house. “Go to bed!”  
Ben looked back at where he thought Caedus was and checked again. He walked around the house one more time to make sure.  
“It’s in my head. I’m seeing things.” Ben muttered to himself. He looked into the sky and saw a ship flying. It flew over the house, not close enough to do anything, but it was close enough for Ben to know that it was a ship. Was it Darth Caedus? Or was all of this happening taking a toll on him. It had happened during his time with the First Order too. He would see hallucinations, like the few times that he saw Luke, and Han, and Leia. That’s what it was. He was seeing things because of the pressure. He walked inside and laid next to Rey. He put his arm around her and fell asleep. It wasn’t a nice sleep. Ben would start the worst nightmare that he had ever had.


	16. Finn

Finn liked using Rey’s office. He knew that he would need to give it back eventually whenever Rey came back. So far the work that had been left for him had been numerous but easy. They had four new Jedi Padawans here now. Alastor’s apprentice Jackson hadn’t been the only Padawan to graduate to knighthood. Two more Padawans had gone to knighthood as well. Finn had been embarrassed to admit that he didn't know their names and had to keep looking at the sheets he had during the ceremony to know their names are John (Oddily boring name) and Penelope. He really needed to start learning everyone's names. Alastor walked into the office.  
“Hey are you ready?”  
“Uhhh” Finn had no idea what he was talking about.  
“The Black Sun bunker?” Alastor sighed.  
“No idea dude.” Finn shrugged.  
“Maybe I didn’t tell you. My bad. Well, There’s a bunker on Naboo. That’s where they got their army for the attack on Theed. I figured that we could go try and take it. We’ll take Jackson with us. Apparently they have a lightsaber there. We should get it back.” Alastor said all of this while rubbing his robotic hand.  
“Yea, I need some action. Let’s do it.” Finn nodded, stood up and grabbed his lightsaber.   
They walked out and Alastor pointed at his old apprentice in the hallway and Jackson ran up to meet them. The three of them walked to their Jedi starfighters and flew to Naboo. Landing a safe distance away they jumped out and walked up the hill.  
“I don’t see it.” Jackson said, scratching his head.  
“You’re not supposed to. It is the hill over there. We’ll have to wait for someone to come by and join them at the entrance.” Finn explained.  
Alastor grunted. “Smart. Cut off the chance of a sneak attack.”  
“How long will that be?” Jackson asked  
“Could be all day. We’ll have to cross the hill naturally as so to not raise suspicion and then camp out on the other side.” Finn laughed at Jackson’s face. “I thought Alastor taught you patience!”  
“I did! He’s just young. The kids these days have no patience.” Alastor grumbled and started walking.  
Finn and Jackson shared a look and then joined him. They made it across the field and up the hill.  
“Jackson, feel the ground.” Finn told the young Jedi.  
Jackson leaned down and tried digging into the ground but only could move a few inches down.  
“There’s metal.” Jackson reported  
“Then we’re in the right place.” Finn nodded at him. “Good job.”  
Jackson beamed at the approval and they sat down. To be honest Finn didn’t know how this would work. There wasn’t any cover and as the hours went by he started to think that their original plan wasn’t going to work.  
“No ones coming. What if we cut our way in? We have lightsabers. Who even knows if someone is there right now?” Jackson was raising some good points.  
“I think you might be right. Let’s get down the hill and cut open an entrance.” Alastor stood up and they started to walk down the hill. The three Jedi ignited their lightsabers and cut a huge rectangle for them to walk into. Keeping their lightsabers on, they walked through the hole. It was pitch black. The only sound was the hum of the lightsabers and the only light was the blue hue from Finn and Jackson’s lightsabers and the purple hue from Alastors. They walked slowly and cautiously and didn’t leave each other's sides. Eventually they came to a door. They split up going on either side of the door and Finn and Alastor looked at each other. Alastor made a cutting motion at the door. Finn nudged Jackson and pointed at the door. Jackson quietly moved forward and cut through the door. If fell apart because of the heat from the saber, and Jackson quickly moved back just in case it was a trap. Nothing came. The three of them looked at each other confused.   
They moved into the next room and Finn used the light from his lightsaber to find a control panel. He pressed what looked like the lights and all of the lights in the room came on. It was smaller than the first one but still big. There were three entrances to new rooms on each wall, two of the walls had windows that showed droids being made. They looked like the old droids from the clone wars years ago. It was a droid factory.   
“What the hell….” Alastor walked over to one of the windows and watched.   
Jackson and Finn joined him. They watched in awe.  
“This is so much worse than I thought. They’re building a huge army…” Finn said horrified.  
Suddenly, the two doors opened up on the left of them and five Black Sun members came up.  
“Hey, you three!” The member in front charged and fired his gun at them.  
Alastor blocked the bolt and it flew back at the guy and hit him square in the chest. Finn and Jackson jumped at the remaining guards and cut two down each. They looked at each other.  
“Let’s go this way. There must be something there if they came from that way.” Jackson explained.  
Finn and Alastor nodded and started walking down the hallway. Everyonce and awhile a guard or two would charge out of a room, but the three Jedi were just too strong to deal with. They made it to the end of the long hallway that kept winding and bringing them further down in the bunker. At the end of the hallway and stairs they found a door. It was larger than other doors around them. Finn used the force and pulled the door open. Finn and Alastor walked into the room and left Jackson to guard the door. Inside was a Pedestal with an odd hilt on it. It looked like a lightsaber blade, except it was rectangular and not very fancy. It was grey, with one button on one side of it. Finn walked up and picked up the hilt. He moved it in his hand. Finn and Alastor shared a confused look.  
“Is this the lightsaber?” Finn asked.  
“ I dunno… Maybe. Press the button, let’s see what happens.” Alastor said mystified.  
Finn pointed the hilt upwards and pressed the button. An odd Black blade came out of the hilt. It was almost flat, and was sharp at the end. It made the same hum as a regular lightsaber. Finn had no idea where it came from.  
“This is cool. It feels right though.” Finn said, moving it around in it’s hand.   
“Then it’s yours. If it feels right, then the force wills it.” Alastor nodded.  
They left the room and Finn felt better than ever holding the new lightsaber. When they got out of the bunker they flew back to the Jedi temple.  
“Did that seem too easy? Like it was a factory and we walked it, beat up like 7 guys and then left. None of the droids even came to get us.” Finn said, confused.  
“Well maybe it was still a new base. If they didn’t have anything important going on, why cover it? Plus if they just started that base and started moving things there and they knew we were looking for them it makes perfect sense for them to tell us the smallest newest base to take, thinking that we had a victory. We got scammed.” Alastor grumbled annoyed. “They got us.”  
Finn sighed. “Idiots probably just forgot that they had moved this lightsaber. That was convenient.”  
Alastor laughed. “Yea. I was nice to do something with you again buddy. Thanks for coming with, you’re doing a good job taking over for Rey while she’s gone.”  
“Thanks. I’ll let you know if I find anything else out about anyone. We really need to figure out what’s going on with Darth Caedus and the Yuuzhan Vong. Rey doesn’t want the Jedi actively in the war because of the last Jedi order. They got too involved at it turned them away from their morals and turned everyone else against them.” Finn explained all of this while they walked down the temple.  
Whatever happened next, Finn knew that the response by the republic and the Jedi order was critical. The wrong response could lead to total annihilation.


	17. Ben Solo

Ben woke up and realized immediately that he was in a nightmare. In front of him was sith lords from the past and present looking at him. He recognized Darth Vader, Darth Sidious, and Darth Caedus. They didn’t say anything to him but just stood there. It was an oddly creepy feeling. Ben looked around him and saw that he was in the death star. It was the Emperor’s room, and he only knew this from studying the old starship from when the First Order was making Starkiller base. He stood up.  
“Can I. Can I help you all?” Ben asked, his heart pounding.  
“Join us Ben. We can give you everything.” Darth Caedus tempted him, smiling.  
“No. Not ever again. I will never fall back to the dark side.” Ben confidently said.  
Darth Caedus frowned but Darth Sidious smiled.  
“If you will not join. Then we will take everything from you..” He laughed.  
There was silence for a moment, with the only sound being Darth Vader's breathing.  
“You are weak. The girl is holding you back. Love holds you back.” Vader insistent angrily.  
“No! This isn’t real. You’re not real!” Ben snapped.  
“Not real… Is this real?” Darth Sidious stuck out his hand and shocked Ben with force lightning. He screamed and fell to the ground. It sure felt real. Sidious stopped, and Ben shakily stood up. He was smoking.   
“You can’t. You can’t get me. I won’t break.” Ben breathed hard.  
“What about my sister?” Darth Caedus asked.  
“She would never turn. She’s better than all of us.” Ben was sure that they couldn’t get to Rey.  
“No no no. You misunderstand me. What if we took Rey out of the picture? We don’t need her. You don’t need her. But we need you Ben. Help us.” Darth Caedus shook his head at the idea of Rey joining them.   
“Don’t touch her. Leave her alone, this is between us.” Ben demanded.  
“She’s my sister. This was ALWAYS between me and her. But that’s obsolete. She’s already out of the picture.” He smiled.  
“What do you mean? What did you do, I told you that this isn’t real!” Ben was getting angry but trying to keep it from controlling him.   
Vader stepped forward and grabbed him by the throat and picked him up.  
“You are a failure. You were to be my successor. This is very real. And I will show you the power of the dark side. The power that you turned your back to.” He walked back in the room with Ben still struggling to get free. Vader threw him across the room and Ben hit something wet and cold. He looked at his hand and noticed blood. Ben stood up and spun around and was speechless and out of breath at the sight. It was Rey’s body. Bloody and mangled. Ben was shaking. This isn’t real, it can’t be real. I’m in a nightmare, this isn’t real. He walked backward and ran into gnarled hands. Darth Sidious grabbed him and threw him again. When Ben slammed on the floor next to his dead wife, Sidious shot lightning at him again. Ben screamed with pain. He couldn’t move or breath and just heard laughing. They stopped when he was nearly dead. He twitched a few times. Darth Vader walked over to him and ignited his lightsaber. He looked down at Ben and swung down. Right as Ben would have been cut in half he woke up. He screamed when he woke up suddenly and fell off the bed. On his way down he slammed his head into his nightstand. Groaning Ben stumbled up.   
“What happened, are you ok??” Rey had gotten up and ran over to him.  
“Yea… Yea. It was just. Nothing. It’s fine.” Ben shook his head.  
“Ben.” Rey looked at him concerned.  
He sighed. “I. Had a dream. A really bad dream. I think it was real. Well realish.”  
“What do you mean? What happened??” Rey took his hand and sat down on the bed next to him.  
Ben told her what he had dreamt and sighed again. “I was able to have connections to Darth Vader when I was on the dark side. I think it’s possible that Darth Caedus has too.”  
“But. Not all of it was real. I’m not dead. And you couldn’t have been shocked by Darth Sidious, nothing happened to you here, you just moved a lot.” Rey was trying to convince him that nothing had happened and while he wanted to believe her he didn’t know if he could.  
Ben stroked his neck. “It all felt like it happened. Like Vader picked me up by the throat. It hurt then and it hurts now. I don’t know what’s happening but if your brother is learning from our grandfathers then we need to hurry and find a way to stop him. The dark side has many abilities that are stronger than anything the light side could ever imagine.”  
“What do you mean? The light side is strong too. In history the lightside usually wins..” Rey scratched her head.  
“The lightside users can usually control their power more. They usually last longer in life too. Think about the dark side like a huge firecracker that is really strong but doesn’t last very long. The light side would be like a candle. Soft and beautiful, but it can still cause damage if needed. But the candle will last much longer than the firecracker. The dark side is the reason that Palpatine came back. Or Darth Sidious? I don’t know what to call him now.” Ben explained this and checked his body for any marks from the dream.  
“So what do we do? We need to find out what he’s up to and how to stop him.” Rey stood up, and then winced and sat back down.  
Ben shrugged. “I don’t really know what we do. Prepare for war. If the Yuuzhan Vong and the Black Sun are teaming up with the new sith then we need to be prepared for everything. It also is possible that Darth Caedus is going to find an apprentice. Then we need to be ready for that too. There’s a lot of things to look out for…”  
“We’ll figure something out. Soon. Please go to bed. We can worry about this later. Something will happen soon that will be good for us.” Rey was trying to find the words to comfort him but Ben knew that she was making this up as she went. Hopefully They would have enough time to come up with something. They didn’t have any leads and they didn’t have a big enough army. Ben knew that Rey didn’t want the Jedi to get involved with any war, but at this point it might be impossible. Something big was coming. Something that would change the Galaxy forever.

3 months later


	18. Rey Solo

Rey was VERY pregnant now. She kind of hated it. It was going to be over soon in a week or so but still, even then she wouldn’t be able to help the Jedi for another few months. Rey knew that she could leave the kids with Ben but she wanted to be there with them and him to get through all of this. Something else that really annoys her is that she couldn’t do anything without Ben’s help. She knew that it wasn’t his fault but Rey found herself getting annoyed with him several times recently. She really appreciated how he never got angry with her and would just smile and continue to offer help. Rey basically rolled out of bed and went to get some water. Ben was still sleeping and she didn’t want to wake him up this time because of how late he was up last night making sure that she was ok.   
Poe and Finn had come by several times recently and had given them a ton of supplies for the babies, and had helped make the room and decorate it. Rey was very appreciative of everyone's help and she knew that it was going to be ok but something still worried her. She had a bad feeling about things. She knew that her brother would try and find them and if he did she knew that he would either kill her children or try and take one or more of them for the dark side. Rey worried about Ben too. He wouldn’t tell her but she was sure that he was still having nightmares about the dark side either threatening him and trying to tempt him. She knew that he wouldn’t fall back to his old ways, but she was really worried about his sanity. Ben was really stressed recently and Rey thought that the only way that he could unwind was to get out of the house and stretch but it wasn’t like that was possible right now. Marie wasn’t lying when she told Poe that she was going to increase the search for Ben. Every day 3 patrols would go out to different systems and search the planets and moons. She was sure that the only reason the search parties hadn’t come to her was because Marie trusted Rey and thought that she couldn’t possibly hide Ben. She sat at the table and had breakfast. There wasn’t a lot for her to do. Rey heard Ben get up and walked toward the dining area. She thought that he would come out soon and had got some food made for him. She looked at him and pointed at the food since her mouth was still full. He smiled and kissed her forehead and sat down.   
“Do you want to make a plan for today?” He asked her in between eating.   
Rey nodded. “I like doing that. It makes me go less crazy.”   
Ben laughed. “Me too. Stretches, meditation, I’ll collect the moisture and sell it in town, you do breathing exercises.. I don’t know anything else?”  
“I don’t think so. We have the babies room all set up, the house looks a lot nicer and bigger than when we moved in. I think that’s it. Pretty much what we do everyday.” She sighed.  
Ben shoveled the rest of his food into his mouth and stood up.  
“I’m going to go do the moisture stuff now so we can get some more credits and then I don’t have to leave for the rest of the day.”  
Rey nodded at him and decided to do some stretches before he came back. Ben was gone for maybe an hour and when he came back he tossed the credits on the table.  
“I think some Black Sun goons are taking stuff from the people in town. The woman I usually sell stuff to paid me more than usual. I dunno what happened but boy, did she want the water more than usual.”  
“I hope she’s ok…” Rey was worried about the news of the Black Sun here on Tatooine. Had Darth Caedus found her?  
Ben shrugged. “I can check it out tomorrow.” He rolled his eyes and sarcastically said “Wow, how far I’ve risen. I went from ruler of the galaxy to a moisture farmer/detective.”  
Rey nudged him with her shoulder. “Well most people hated you as the Supreme Leader so I’d say you're in a good place here.”  
Ben laughed. “Good point. Plus this way I have you. That’s pretty good.”  
Rey smiled at him. “I need to meditate. I want to make sure that everything is ok.”  
Ben nodded. “Sounds good. I need to clean up from the desert sand and I’ll meet you in the room.”  
Rey sat on the floor in front of their bed and waited for him. Ben sat next to her and the both took a deep breath and closed their eyes. Rey felt the power of the force flow through her and she felt the need to open her eyes. When she opened them she was in the star covered area that she was almost 3 years ago when she almost died against Palpatine. She looked around and didn’t see anyone. She turned around confused.  
“Lost are we?”  
Rey sighed and turned back around to see Luke.  
“You guys need to stop doing that trick.”  
Luke laughed at her. “Well, I wasn’t a very good master when I was alive so I get to have fun with you when I’m dead.” He paused. “You’re wondering why so many force ghosts have come to you and Ben recently when you haven’t heard from us in a long time.”  
Rey nodded. “Something is happening soon isn’t it? This isn’t just a short war. Darth Caedus, Yuuzhan Vong, and the Black Sun are all connected.”  
Luke looked grimly at her. “Yes. It’s all connected through the dark side of the force. I can’t see the plans. I can’t see into the Black Sun and Darth Caedus because he has almost completely taken over the Black Sun and is using the dark side to cloud their movement. I don’t know why I can’t sense the Yuuzhan Vong. I can’t see them, and I can’t sense their allegiance in the force…”  
Rey thought for a minute. “Well they’re from out of the galaxy right? Maybe that’s why we can’t see them in the force?”  
Luke shook his head. “That’s certainly part of it, but I can’t sense their movement within the galaxy either. I thought it was because they were hanging around your brother but even in these battles waging around the galaxy, I can’t sense what they are doing.”  
Rey was really confused. Then something clicked inside of her head. “Luke. Is it possible that they are immune to the force?”  
Luke looked at her for a minute before slowly responding. “Yes….If that is the truth then everything you do against them must be very calculated. You wouldn’t be able to use force techniques against them and you wouldn’t be able to sense them. It would be impossible to predict their moves. Whatever you do, be careful.” He started to disappear. “You are important for the future Rey…. The galaxy needs you and Ben.”


	19. Ben Solo

Ben was meditating with Rey. But he didn’t want to be visited by a force ghost. Ben wanted to see the future. He knew it was possible and he didn’t want to use it to see far ahead, he just wanted to make sure that Rey would be ok through childbirth. He knew that this was a dangerous thing to get obsessed with. After all, worrying about his wife not dying through childbirth is what drove his grandfather toward the dark side. He focused hard and opened his eyes. Ben was standing in what he assumed was the chancellor’s quarters on Coruscant. He looked over in the corner and saw Rey on the ground crying with Poe and the chancellor by her. She was giving birth. He walked over to the door and saw Finn and some of the other Jedi fighting the Yuuzhan Vong, the Black Sun and Darth Caedus. He recognized Tsavong Lah in the crowd too. They had gotten really far into the senate chambers already. Poe ran over to Finn.  
“Call Ben. Tell him that we have it under control, it’s not safe for him here!”  
Finn nodded. “Ok, we got this!”   
Poe ran back to Rey and Finn kept fighting. Ben kept watching and as the battle went on, they kept being pushed back and back until they were fighting in the Chancellor’s quarter. Tsavong Lah had pushed through and stabbed the chancellor. Poe shot at him and then had his hand cut off by Darth Caedus and then was decapitated. Ben panicked and looked around and saw Finn’s dead body lying a few feet away. Caedus picked Rey up with the force and threw her out a window.  
“Ben, listen to me. Ben!”   
Ben snapped his eyes open to see he still wasn’t back in his room but was in some force nexus thing. He stood up and saw Anakin again.  
“Everyone wants to speak to me I guess.” Ben grunted and shook off what he had just seen.  
“That wasn’t the true future.” Anakin answered Ben’s question before he could even say it.  
“What do you mean? Can I change it? It’s not just about Rey. If this happens, then the galaxy is back under the heel of the Sith again.” Ben asked.  
“You’re right. There is. The future is ever changing. It’s like a flow of water. If you move the surroundings, then the flow will change. You’re not going to like what you have to do. It’s a sacrifice Ben.”  
“I don’t care about the sacrifice if it has to do with me. It’s not about Rey or my kids is it?” Ben demanded to know what he could do to change this.  
Anakin shook his head. “No. Rey or your future children will not be hurt. This sacrifice will be all about you.”  
“Is there a way that I can come out safe? Ben scratched his head.  
“Not immediately. Maybe in the future. You will face death. You might face something worse than death.” Anakin’s answers were vague.  
Ben was getting annoyed. “I saw the future, why are you being so vague? Just tell me what I have to do.”  
“Very well. Over the next week, the new army that Darth Caedus is forming with the Yuuzhan Vong will start to storm closer to the capital. Despite how much you might want to, you can’t join the fight against them. You will give yourself away or tire yourself out before the fight on Coruscant. When the fight comes to Coruscant, as you saw Poe will tell Finn to tell you not to come help and that it is too risky for you to be there. That they can handle it. As you saw, they cannot. When this happens, you will join the fight instead. You are the most skilled fighter there. Using your help, the enemy will fall back. After this they will most likely arrest you for your crimes. If you are careful there might be a way for you to convince the Republic to let you go once your court time arrives. If you can’t, then you will most likely be sentenced to death.” Anakin said all of this without blinking.   
Ben stood there for a moment in silence. “If this is the only way, then I will play my part. Is there an argument that I can use to ensure that I’m safe after I’m arrested?”  
Anakin shrugged. “I can predict parts of the future, not tell you how to do that. I was a war general for a while, it’s easy for me to tell you how to change the outcome of a war. I wasn’t a lawyer. Just know that we are here for you. The force is with you Ben. It always will be.”


	20. Finn

Finn was pacing in the Jedi temple. There were two attacks going on right now between two different systems and Finn was trying to uphold Rey’s values of not including the Jedi in any fights. The only problem was that now the Black Sun was openly joining the fight against the Republic, and all of the leads Finn had on possibly finding Darth Caedus involved the Black Sun in some way. Finn thought for a second. He knew that something needed to be done. If he just went to help Poe against the Yuuzhan Vong was it really the Jedi helping or him helping? Everyone knew Finn and knew that he wasn’t really in charge of the Jedi. Sighing, he stood up and picked his new lightsaber off of the desk. He rolled it around in his hand, still confused about where it came from. He learned it had the nickname of the Darksaber and that long ago a member of the Madalorian group joined the Jedi and used this as his lightsaber, but he wasn’t sure how the Black Sun got it or why they even wanted it. It was hard for a non force user to use a lightsaber because of the force connection with the kyber crystal. But Finn couldn’t even find where the crystal was located on the saber. Finn walked through the halls of the temple urgently trying to figure out the best plan of action. He had a couple conversations with other Jedi, but they never lasted more than a minute. Finn decided that he had to go help Poe. He couldn’t sit there and do nothing, and his friend needed help. In order to make sure that the galaxy wouldn’t assume that the new Jedi order had joined in the fight, he would go by himself. Running to his fighter, he jumped in and called Poe.  
“Poe! Where are you, I’m coming to help!”   
“Mygeeto! The Yuuzhan Vong are attacking the natives here, if you’re coming to help you need to leave now! Shit, HIT THE DECK!!” Poe’s transmission cut out.  
Finn sped off as fast as he could to Mygeeto and could even see the battle from space when he made it to the planet. He landed next to the Republic ships and jumped out igniting the darksaber. He ran and cut down a Yuuzhan Vong warrior as he looked for Poe. Slicing through as many of the alien warriors as he could he finally got a good look at them. They were ugly, and shared the same white skin that Tsavong Lah had, but they were much shorter. They could do with a bath or something soon too. The stench that came off of them was something like a weapon itself.   
Jumping through the battle, he saw why the Republic needed help. The Yuuzhan Vong were strong and ruthless. They were not above using not only their fists, feet and weapons, but their teeth too. Finn watched horrified as a Republic trooper was grabbed by the warrior and had his throat torn out before being tossed aside. He couldn’t find Poe either and that was starting to worry him. Not that Poe couldn’t handle the Yuuzhan Vong, but that he would do something stupid trying to save someone else and would get hurt or die. He ran through the streets doing what he could to fight off the warriors and save as many troopers as he could. Finally once he got into a building, he saw Poe and 3 Republic troopers fighting off 5 Yuuzhan Vong warriors. Finn was too far away to make it in time to save one of the troops so he tried to pull the Yuuzhan Vong warrior away from him. But nothing happened. The warrior did not move. When Finn reached out with the force to try and reach the Yuuzhan Vong, he couldn’t. The creature was outside of the force. Finn ran toward the trooper as fast as he could to try and make it but he couldn’t. The Yuuzhan Vong swung his hug club and took the poor troopers head clean off. Finn made it and drove his lightsaber through the Yuuzhan Vong’s back. With the Yuuzhan Vong warriors surprised at Finn coming out of nowhere, Poe and the last 2 troopers charged and helped Finn take down the last 4 warriors left. The troopers ran out of the building and toward the fight. Poe looked at Finn with relief and nodded.  
“Nice new saber. Is the color because. You know.” He pointed at Finn and the darksaber.  
“What do you.. Oh come on man, really?” Finn looked at Poe and shook his head.  
Poe laughed and wiped blood off of his head. “Good to see you buddy. Let’s kick their ass.”  
They charged out of the building and shot and slashed their way through the aliens.  
“How do we get them to leave? Where’s their leader??” Finn yelled over the battle.  
“No idea! I don’t know if they have a leader, I think that they just fight until they’re all dead!” Poe yelled back at him.  
“Great. Fun, that’ll go well!” Finn barely finished the sentence before he was grabbed by the neck and dragged to the ground. He rolled over on the ground right before a sword stabbed the ground right next to his head. Spinning back up he cut off the hand and then slashed the chest of the Yuuzhan Vong that had attacked him. He looked up to the sky and saw that an aerial battle had started. Finn and Poe looked at each other and Poe sprinted off to get in his X-wing where BB-8 was waiting. They took off into the sky and Finn lost them in the sky. Continuing to fight, Finn was getting really tired. The Yuuzhan Vong were strong and had a lot of endurance. This was a lot different than fighting humans. Finn got an idea. The Yuuzhan Vong had taken over a huge building on the other side of the city. Finn was thinking that there must be a generator in the building or on the outside of that building. If that could be destroyed they wouldn’t have electricity to call in reinforcements or maybe it could even blow up and take out their warriors they brought. Sprinting through the fight he cut down the enemy but didn’t stop running. This needed to be over. He ran across the damaged bridge trying to take cover as much as he could. It wasn’t easy, there was some kind of explosive that they were throwing across the bridge, either trying to destroy it to stop the Republic from getting over it, or they were just trying to blow up the city. Finn used the force to push the grenade like objects back at them and eventually they stopped coming. He took the opportunity to run across the bridge and cut through more Yuuzhan Vong until he was at the building. Finn ran around the left side of the large building trying to find some kind of generator. It took a long time but eventually he found something that would work as one and gave off an electric hum. He hid behind a pillar and called Poe.  
“Poe, there’s the generator that I think is powering the building. If we take it out it might help cripple their forces. It’s got a shield around it though, I can’t reach it. Your X-wing might have enough power to break through the shield and destroy it.” Finn whispered just in case someone was walking by.  
“Got it. I’ll make my way over, they just got a huge ship in orbit. I don’t know what it is, but I can almost guarantee that it’s not good.” Poe’s com shut off.  
“Damn it…” Finn groaned and ran out to see the ship. A huge beam of light came off of it to the ground and then an actual laser came out and hit the ground. Finn was momentarily taken into the air and then slammed into the ground hard. After the wind was done being knocked out of him, he got up and then was immediately slammed down to the ground again. Getting back up Finn realized what was going on. The Yuuzhan Vong were trying to terraform the planet.


	21. Poe Dameron

Poe was flying through the air shooting down as many Yuuzhan Vong fighters as he could. As the huge ship that just appeared above the planet shot a huge beam to the ground and Poe watched everyone on the ground get lifted into the air and then dropped back on the ground hard. It happened several more times. Poe nearly got hit by one of the enemy fighters while he was distracted with the beam that was hitting the planet.   
“Finn! Are you alright???” Poe was shocked by the scene, he hadn’t seen anything like this since Starkiller base.  
Finn groaned in the comlink and Poe watched him stand up. “Yea, yea. I might have a broken rib. And leg. And arm. And my neck. You gotta come destroy this generator. If it blows we might be able to blow this whole building sky high!”  
“I’m working on it.” Poe spun through the air as fast as he could, shooting down Yuuzhan Vong fighters. He tried to get as close as he could to the generator as he could, but he kept getting shooed away by fighters blocking the area. There must be hundreds of Yuuzhan Vong fighter ships in the air right now. Poe spun around and watched as the fighters came flying out of the bigger ship.   
“Damn it…” He grumbled, spinning away from the building.   
Poe got the idea to try and force the blast doors to shut from the Yuuzhan Vong Flagship. If they couldn’t keep the door open then they couldn’t keep sending out more ships. If their ships are gone, then the Republic could take out enough fighter ships to weaken their forces, take out the generator, blow up the base they’ve made here and win the battle. He sped off toward their flagship as fast as he could, blasting enemy fighters out of the sky until he made it to the ship. He blasted the guns on either side of the entrance to the hanger and avoided some more fighters. Poe flew to the bottom of the ship trying to find something to blow up. When he got through the end he noticed, something hanging out of the bottom. Poe didn’t know what it was but it was something worth trying. He fired his guns at it, and it blew up.   
“That was sort of anti-climactic..” Poe thought.   
A series of explosions went off and Poe shot up to check the hanger door and felt relief when he noticed that it was closed. He spent more time taking down enemy fighters and then shot down the generator. The building exploded before Poe realized he never checked to make sure that Finn was out of the way.   
“Finn! Finn, are you ok?”   
“Yes, yes, I’m fine! Keep going, they're starting to retreat down here!” Finn responded loudly and confidently.  
Finn was right. The Yuuzhan Vong had started to retreat on the ground and was panicking in the sky. The Republic flagship had started to open fire and within minutes the Yuuzhan Vong flagship had crashed and landed on the planet with a sickening thud and huge explosion.   
“Guys, it’s over. Let them retreat and let's do our best to help the city to remove the rubble and bodies.” Poe told the remaining troops over the com and then flew back to the ground.   
The next few hours were long and hard. They spend the majority of it cleaning rubble, identifying the dead bodies of the republic troops and burying them. Then they had to deal with the bodies of the Yuuzhan Vong, which were mostly burnt. The leaders of the city promised that a memorial would be posted with the names of all of the troops who died to protect them.   
After many more handshakes and a quickly thrown together meal, Poe finally got away and flew back to Coruscant. His whole body ached and he was bleeding in several places, but he knew that the Chancellor would want word about what happened, so Poe sucked it up and went to see her. She greeted him grimly at the door and they went into a secret room the Poe didn’t know was even there. It was a smaller room but had enough space for several people. It looked like a safety bunker just in case Marie had to hide out. There were several shelves full of food and water and then some comfort supplies. It looked like a comfortable place to be held up in.   
“Sorry for the secrecy Poe. This needs to stay between us.” Marie looked him in the eyes with sadness and worry. “Tell me about what happened.”  
Poe recanted the story about the fight from beginning to end. He explained about their giant ship and the weird terraforming machine it had.   
Marie sighed. “I’m sure the conditions that they are used to are different then we have in this galaxy. I bet they want to make all of our planets like theirs. I don’t know exactly how, but I don’t think it involves peace treaties.”  
Poe nodded in agreement. “I don’t know either. They already attacked the Jedi Temple. I’m afraid that they’ll try here next. The Yuuzhan Vong don’t wait around. They seem to just take what they want..”  
Marie hesitated. “You’ve been very helpful. I think I need you to stay here just in case you’re right. We’ll keep extra lookout and I’ll order a shelter in place for the citizens for a few weeks. They aren’t going to like it, but I’d rather they attack while everyone is safe at home then in the streets.”  
“I’ll go find one of the head security guards and set up perimeters and make sure that we have enough troops here just in case.” Poe stood up and winced from the pain.  
“Go to the med bay first and get healed up. We can’t have you out of commision. Check on Finn too.” Marie opened the door and walked out.  
Poe followed and went to get healed up. Luckily nothing was broken, and could be healed easily. After calling Finn to make sure he was ok, Poe was ready to arm the planet. If the Yuuzhan Vong wanted war, then it was war they would get.


	22. Finn

Finn groaned. He was lying on the floor in the grand master office in the temple. Everything hurt and his clothes were burnt. Getting off the floor, he cleaned himself up and got some of the dirt and blood off of his face and then sat down in the chair. He thought about how useful it would be to have Rey around, and found himself wallowing in self pity for a little bit, wondering if she would have been able to find a way to stop the Yuuzhan Vong quicker than he did.   
He shook off those thoughts and thought about the fight in general. Why wasn’t Darth Caedus or Tsavong Lah there? Was that a diversion? Were they saving their strength for an upcoming fight? Could the Jedi stay out of the war for much longer? And if they couldn’t, could they save themselves from falling to the same fate that the old Jedi did? All these questions and Finn didn’t have an answer to any of them.   
If Rey and Ben could help him than all of this would be a lot easier. But they couldn’t and Finn knew that. He knew that he had to take a stand and do what he could. For his friends, for the Jedi, for the Republic, and for the Galaxy. These thoughts comforted him and he went back to studying old Jedi texts. There was an interesting symbol on one of the texts that Finn realized was the symbol of the old grey Jedi that stood even before the old republic did. The grey Jedi were an order of Jedi that believed in balance between the light and the dark, and were the basis for this order that Finn, Rey and Ben had started.   
It felt good to be a part of something like this. From First Order stormtrooper to temporary Grand Master of the Jedi Order. Something still felt off in the force though, so Finn grabbed the darksaber and headed to his ship. He would fly to Coruscant and see if Poe needed any help. Landing at the senate building, he jumped out and showed his Jedi pass to the guards so they knew that he could be in the more restricted sections of the building. Walking through it he stopped at the security guard office. There were two guards there right now watching cameras and eating snacks.  
“Uh, hey guys.” Finn greeted himself.  
One of the guards looked at him and nodded. “Hey man, what’s up, you lost or something?”  
“No, I’m looking for Poe Dameron.” Finn corrected him.  
“Ok, uh. Who’s asking?” The guard spun his chair around and looked at Finn Cautiously.  
“Finn is. Who are you?”   
“Oh sup man. You’re a Jedi. Name’s John. Nah dude, I haven’t seen Poe. You could check the medbay though. I saw him a bit ago muttering about defensive measures or something. Are you sure he’s stable??”  
Finn sighed. “No. No, I'm not. Thanks anyways.”  
Finn walked away from that weird encounter and walked to the medbay. The doctor there said that Poe had come by asking about medical supplies and then left for the armory. After again walking to the armory, Finn finally found Poe counting weapons and ammo.  
Finn looked at him confused. “Dude, what are you doing?”  
Poe looked up at him. “Hey buddy, I think a big battle is coming here, I’m trying to get everything ready just in case it does. I think we’re armed enough. I got the best guards and troops out patrolling and Marie put the city on lockdown.”  
“Well that would explain the odd guards shoved on cam duty. Do you need anything from me?”  
Poe thought about it. “Yea actually, can you call Rey and see if you can get her here for a bit? It’ll be useful for both of you to be here. I think we should meet with Marie one more time and having the top two Jedi with me could be nice. Plus you haven’t met her officially yet so you can stop complaining about that. I don’t know man, I got a bad feeling about this. All of this and I don’t know why.” Poe stood up and shook his head. “Something bad is coming and soon. Here I was thinking that the worst was behind us.”  
Finn nodded grimly. “I think you’re right. I’m sensing something too. I’d bet credits that Ben and Rey do as well. I’ll call Rey, and meet you at the Chancellor’s quarters. I got a map, so I can find it myself.”  
Poe nodded and walked off. Finding somewhere more private, Finn called Rey and was glad to see her when she picked up.  
“Rey, Poe wants you here for a meeting with the Chancellor. He wants us both to be there.”  
Rey sighed. “Sure, give me a bit. I’ll join you guys late, start without me.”  
Finn nodded and hung up. He walked through the building until he found the place he was looking for. The quarters had extra guards than normal and after confirming he was who he said he was, one of the guards went inside to get the Chancellor. She opened the door and started at him with a grim face.  
“Jedi master Finn. I wish the circumstances were better, but it’s still nice to meet you. Come inside, we have a lot to discuss.”


	23. Poe Dameron

Poe sat down at a table with Marie. She had just gone and got Finn, who was sitting next to him. They sat in awkward silence for a good few minutes, no one really knew what to say.  
“So Poe, why did you want to meet?” Marie finally broke the silence and tried her best to smile.  
“I think we need to try and get some treaty between the Jedi and the Republic. If something happens, then we need to be ready. The Republic needs help and the Jedi would be the perfect defenders.”  
Finn sighed. “Rey won’t allow it. Remember, last time the Jedi tried to be soldiers the Republic fell and almost every Jedi died.”  
“Well that’s why it’s ok that you’re here first. Aren’t you in control of the Jedi actively right now? Can’t you do something while Rey is out of commission?” Poe tried looking to Marie for support.  
Marie hesitated. “Poe, that seems really shady. I would love for the Jedi’s full support in the war, but if they can’t fully commit right now that’s fine.”  
Finn nodded. “I’d love to help you, but I can’t do that. Not without Rey. She needs to make that final decision. But I don’t think she will, and if I was in charge I wouldn’t either. It’s just an ethical thing.”  
“The damn ethics of this don’t matter right now. There is a war coming? All you care about is a small time criminal organization and one lunatic who thinks he’s a sith? Get your head out of your ass Finn, we need you. Aren’t the Jedi supposed to help the galaxy, what the hell are you doing now??” Poe slammed his hand on the table and stood up glaring at Finn. “If you allow this to go on, then you’re part of the problem.”   
Finn stood up to meet Poe. “Don’t you dare tell me that I’m part of the problem. I’m doing what I can and this new sith lord doesn’t think that he’s a sith lord, he IS a sith lord. You know what he did to Rey come on man. Don’t be like this, we’re doing our part, and you’re doing yours.”  
Finn found himself yelling to meet Poe’s anger.  
“Poe, Finn, sit down. Arguing isn’t going to get us anywhere. We NEED to be together, not against each other. Yes Poe, we could use the Jedi help. Yes Finn, the last time the Jedi helped in a war it didn’t end well and you shouldn’t do this behind Rey’s back.” Marie calmly ordered the boys to get along and stayed in her seat.  
They looked at each other for a bit and then sat down. A guard opened the door and walked over to Marie and whispered in her ear. She smiled and stood up and walked to the door. Opening the door she led Rey into the room and they sat down by each other.  
“Thanks for coming, Rey. Finn and Poe were having a… discussion about the Jedi involvement in our fight against the Yuuzhan Vong.” Marie glared at the two men to make sure that they knew not to start this again. Poe coughed and looked at the ground.  
“I’ve been thinking about that… It might be best to start slowing including the Jedi as generals in the war. Just for a bit. And I don’t want them to have any control in anything besides the army. As soon as the war is over, then the Jedi go back to being strictly keepers of the peace. I think-” Rey cut off and winced grabbing her stomach.  
“Hey Rey, are you ok?” Finn asked nervously.  
“I. I’m fine. It’s nothing. Just some pain. I’m not due for a week or two.” Rey tried to sound convincing but failed. The other three at the table looked at each other concerned before trying to continue the conversation.  
“That’s… good news Rey. Thank you for the support. I don’t think we’ll need the Jedi help unless something major happens soon. Personally I don’t think anything will happen, but Poe seems to think we are in trouble.” Marie smiled at Rey and turned to look at Poe.  
Poe sighed and scratched his head. “I’m just trying to be cautious. The galaxy wasn’t cautious with the First Order and then that lunatic Kylo Ren took charge. No offense Rey.” Poe said this and then froze. He forgot that Marie didn’t know what was going on.  
Marie looked between everyone confused. “What do you mean, no offense? Rey?”  
Rey glared at Poe and then looked at Marie. “Uh, Poe thought that I might have turned to the dark side at some point and joined the First Order so he was just making sure I knew there was no hard feeling.” Rey said this quickly.  
Marie hesitated and sat in silence for a minute thinking about it before looking content enough with the answer. “Ok, Poe if you think that something is coming then we will prepare. We need to-”  
A large explosion cut her off. Screams from the hall gave them all another warning that something was wrong, and it wasn’t just a malfunction. Poe and Finn ran to the door and opened it. Poe opened the door and ran out to check on the hall. There was mass chaos. Just like he had thought, the Yuuzhan Vong had attacked the capital. But not just the Yuuzhan Vong had come, the Black Sun, Darth Caedus and Tsavong Lah were there. He could see the red lightsaber, and the super tall war general in the crowd.   
“Damn it… We gotta go get Marie to safety, let’s get her in the bunker and then get out there and fight.”  
Finn nodded. “Agreed. Rey shouldn’t fight. Let’s convince her to stay with the Chancellor too.”  
“She won’t like it, but I’m sure she’ll do it.” Poe ran back into the room and slammed the door shut.   
“We’re under attack. You spoke too soon Chancellor, we have to get you to the bunker, Rey please stay with her. You shouldn’t fight like this, and you can be Marie’s guard.”  
Rey hesitated and then nodded. She stood up and then froze.   
“What are you doing, let’s go.” Poe looked at her confused.  
“I can’t.”  
“Why can’t you?”  
“Because my water just broke.”


	24. Finn

Finn was tired of waiting for Poe and the door and he ran back in. Poe ran over and grabbed him.  
“We’re in trouble, Rey is giving birth.” Poe sounded a lot more panicked than usual.  
“What, right now?”  
“Yes right now!” Poe ran back over to the Chancellor and Rey.  
Finn followed him and hurried to get them both into a secret room that Marie opened. They laid Rey down as best as they could.  
Marie barked out orders fast and efficiently. “Finn, go help defend the capital. Poe have you delivered a baby before?”  
Poe looked at her confused. “Uh no?”  
“Too bad, you’re gonna learn.”  
“Wait what??? Oh God, ok fine.” Poe ran over to Finn and grabbed his shoulder. He whispered urgently into his ear.  
“Call Ben. Tell him that we have it under control, it’s not safe for him here!”

Poe nodded and ran away. He got out of the Chancellor quarters and helped the guards there defend the door as much as they could. He grabbed his holo com and called Ben.  
“Rey is giving birth. We’ll be fine here, there’s a slight battle here but we got this! I’ll keep you updated”  
Ben hesitated on the com and then nodded. Poe ran into the battle with his darksaber ignited doing the best he could to help those who were not winning their fights. He knew that he had to find Darth Caedus to end this as soon as he could. Swinging through blasters and swords, Finn had never felt so prepared for battle. He knew that it shouldn’t feel good, but damn it felt nice to be so fluid. Swinging through the crowd of fighters he kept his eye out of either of the two leaders of the opposing armies. Finn really wanted to go check and make sure that Rey was ok too, but he knew that there were bigger issues at hand right now. Rey would want him to stay and fight. He took a moment and closed his eyes. Taking a deep breath, he let the force flow through him and then continued to charge in battle. Finn started to make his way through the building, but looking at the fights around him, he knew that they wouldn’t last too much longer without extra help.  
Finn continued his trip throughout the hall and then got an idea. He grabbed his holo com and called the Jedi left at the temple and got them to come to help. The Jedi couldn’t win the battle for the Republic, but they sure would help a lot. He knew that Alastor and Jackson were coming, and even though she wasn’t on the call, Finn hoped that Delilah and her new apprentice would come too. That would put them at 6 Jedi including Ben, and would increase the odds of finding Darth Caedus and Tsavong Lah. Eventually Finn found the Yuuzhan Vong war general. It wasn’t that hard to see which one was him because of his extra height. Tsavong had grabbed a Republic soldier and ripped his head off with one clean tug and then threw the body across the hall. Using his snake-like staff he stabbed another soldier in the eye and then allowed the snake to lunge at a soldier next to him and bite him in the neck. The bitten soldier grabbed his neck and hit the floor turning green and foaming at the mouth.  
Angry, Finn charged Tsavong Lah and swung his saber at the giant warrior. For a big creature, he moved with surprising speed. He dodged to the side of Finn’s attack and then grabbed him around the throat. Picking Finn up he grinned and threw him hard against the wall. Finn had the wind knocked out of him and slid to the floor. He stumbled to get up, but before he could a foot slammed into his back pushing him on the floor.  
“Even where I come from, we know tales about the Jedi… I don’t need my staff to kill you. I’ll kill you with my bare hands. Then I’ll frame your head as a trophy!” Tsavong Lah laughed which gave Finn enough time to push him off and scramble to his feet. He used the force to grab the darksaber from across the room and ignited it once more. They charged at each other and spent several minutes without anyone making any contact. Eventually Tsavong Lah pulled a sword out and tucked his staff behind his back.  
“I made this out of the strongest material on my home planet. Do you think your lightsaber can break it?”  
“I don’t know, but let’s find out.” Finn ran at him and they clashed. To Finn’s surprise, the sword did hold up his lightsaber. They continued to fight down the hall and outside a door, which revealed the ships that the Black Sun and the Yuuzhan Vong had arrived in. There was still fighting out here, which relieved Finn a little bit. From across the landing pad Finn noticed Alastor fighting Darth Caedus and Jackson fighting some Yuuzhan Vong. When Jackson met eyes with Finn, he quickly took care of the warriors and ran to help Finn out. The two Jedi were doing fine against the massive general, until he snarled and whipped out his staff in one hand and his sword in the other.  
“Fine. If you get back up. Then so do I!” Tsavong Lah roared and charged the Jedi again. He was much more of a match with two weapons, both of which could block sabers, even without the serpent part of the staff doing anything. He kicked Finn in the chest and sent him spinning across the landing pad. Finn looked up to see Jackson struggling against the general. Finn tried to get over there to help but before he could, Tsavong swung his sword and cut the young Jedi’s stomach open. Jackson dropped onto his knees and then had he head cut off in one more motion. Tsavong Lah picked up his body and threw it off of the landing pad.  
“NO!!!!” Finn screamed and sprinted as fast as he could to re engage the war general. They fought for several minutes until Finn got the upper hand. Swinging his saber wildly, he cut through the hilt of the sword and sent the blade flying. He took the opportunity to slash Tsavong Lah’s face and slashed his right arm off. Screaming he fell to the ground and grabbed his face with his remaining hand. Before Finn could think of doing anything else, several Yuuzhan Vong warriors raced over and grabbed their injured leader and dragged him to the ship. Many of the Yuuzhan Vong had fled but not all had. Only one target remained. Darth Caedus had to be dealt with.


	25. Ben Solo

Ben raced through space as fast as he could. He knew that Poe told him not to come, but Anakin’s words rang in his ears. This was his last stand, after this he would face justice for his crimes. It was all worth it to save Rey and the Republic. Once he arrived at Coruscant, it was easy enough to land and jump out, considering the capital was in all out war right now. He noticed several blades of Jedi already joining the fight, the red blade of Darth Caedus and a black blade fighting Tsavong Lah that Ben didn’t recognize until he got close enough to realize that it was Finn. Ben ignited his grandfather’s lightsaber and did his best to work his way to Finn.   
Helping out several guards and soldiers felt nice, but most of them gave him a double take before shaking their head and running to a different part of the battle. Ben was on a different landing pad than Finn was and after trying to reach the door with no luck he decided to just force jump across the gap and pray that he didn’t miss. After deflecting blaster shots fired at him from some Black Sun soldiers, he ran and jumped as far as he could. He made it easily and then shook himself off. Ben looked over to find Finn and found Finn running at him.   
“What are you doing here?? You could get caught! Still, now that you’re here you’re help will be nice. Tsavong Lah is out of the fight. We lost one Jedi already, we need to go help Alastor with Caedus!” Finn was clearly out of breath and injured.   
“No, I’ll go help him. Go check on Rey, I need to know she’s ok.” Ben put his hand on Finn's shoulder.  
Finn nodded. “Ok deal. I’ll be back as soon as I can to help.” He took off back toward the building and left Ben in the middle of the warzone.  
Running over to help Jedi, Ben started to run faster when he noticed that the Jedi that Finn called Alastor was on the ground disarmed. He jumped to meet them and swung his saber to stop Darth Caedus from cutting Alastor in two.   
Caedus sneered at him. “Look, it’s the savior. The bad boy turned good. Where’s my sister? I’m ending this right now.”  
Ben pushed him back and stood defensively. “I’ll never tell you.”  
Darth Caedus laughed. “I know she’s here and I know she’s giving birth. I’m going to kill you. Then I’ll find her and finish off her and the newborns. No one will stand in my way.”  
Ben charged the sith lord and they clashed. He knew this was important, he had given himself away to the Republic and he knew that even though he was helping them right now that they would still arrest him.   
Ben pushed Caedus with the force and tried to use that advantage to take him down. Caedus was quick enough to block his attack. They started to move back toward the building and as they moved the sith lord slashed down anyone who got in the way of their duel, Republic or Black Sun. When they had moved into the building, Darth Caedus looked at Ben and shot lightning out of his hand. Ben blocked it and was slowly pushed back.  
“You’re weak Ben. You had everything. You turned it down. It’s sad. But I thank you for giving me the title of the dark lord so easily.” Darth Caedus taunted him.  
Ben winced as the force lightning pushed him back and occasionally lashed him in the face.  
“No, I had the guts to leave the chains that the dark side gives us. I am free.” Ben shoved the lightning back and Darth Caedus lost control. Ben lunged at him and they continued to move down the hall. Making it into the main hall the two force users were getting tired and angrier. Looking at him, Ben noticed that Darth Caedus’s eyes had completely turned the bloodshot sith yellow. Ben looked and noticed Finn running down toward him. Ben pushed Caedus away and snapped out of the battle mode to look around. The Republic had successfully pushed back most of the attacking armies and there was only a handful left defending their sith master. Ben took a deep breath and charged one more time. Before he could make it there Darth Caedus force pushed him across the entire room and out the front door. He rolled down the steps and stopped himself last minute on the last step.   
Darth Caedus casually walked out of the building and walked down the steps, his lightsaber at his side. Ben stumbled to his feet and raised his saber back up. Finn ran outside and joined Ben in trying to take down the sith lord. The two Jedi were doing a fine job. Clashing with the two Jedi, Ben could start to notice slight panic in Darth Caedus’s eyes. Using this to his advantage, Finn feinted Caedus and Ben swung his lightsaber up and slashed through his hand, cutting it in half and breaking the lightsaber. Darth Caedus fell on his back and rolled to get up quickly. He backed up and fell off of the edge near them and was picked up by the retreating Black Sun in the process. Ben and Finn sighed and deactivated their lightsabers and looked at each other for a moment. Finn started to laugh and then Ben joined him. The two grabbed each other in a big hug.  
“Rey’s ok. She gave birth to all 3 babies fine, which Marie says rarely happens. Everyone’s ok.”  
Finn assured Ben.  
“Thank you Finn. Tell her. Tell her I love her.” Ben sighed.  
Finn looked at Ben confused. “What do you mean.”  
Ben looked past Finn and pointed at Poe walking towards the several guards. He gave Finn the skywalker saber and smiled sadly. Poe made it to him and hesitated.  
“Ben Solo. You’re under arrest for crimes against the galaxy. You will stand trial and a verdict will be reached after a trial.” One of the guards walked past Poe and handcuffed Ben. The guard looked at Ben with disgust.  
“Do you have any last words traitor?”  
Ben looked at Finn and Poe sadly, and could barely keep tears from streaming down his face.   
“I never got to see my children.”

The End

To Be Continued...


End file.
